Re: [APML] Orion Min-EQ + EQ-1M

["Andrew Skretvedt" <atsdroid@wiktel.com>]

Thank you's for the thoughtful opinions and insights go out to Geoff,
Roland, George, Thom, Joe, and Frank. It's good to get input from the
veterans, and your work shared here stands for itself.

I see the wisdom and the experience there, and it will help me save my money
from being spent pursuing a false economy with this cheap mount.

I am encouraged by yesterday's post by Eric Beard of his first serious
effort with a Haig mount. This does seem like a great way to start, and I'll
get started like a Jedi, building my own.

Meantime, I'm checking into the recommended books. I've already snapped up
Barry Gordon's "Astrophotography" from my local library. I've realized to
make competent equipment decisions in the future, I will need get familiar
with the techniques of the craft, and a vocabulary and theory lesson is step
one.

I have now begun to understand the math that governs what level of tracking
accuracy is required to achieve a given level of "freeze" on the star-motion
for a given focal-length.

Easing my mental anguish, I also have learned that no mount is perfect, and
all require guiding. But the quality of the mount and its unique quirks,
affect the amount of guiding required. Applying the math in Gordon's book, I
can see how some mounts, even if perfectly aligned, may require a level of
constant guiding correction impossible for the operator to predict and
maintain. With a good mount well aligned, depending on the parameters of the
photo, maybe several minutes can elapse before a guiding check. When I made
my earlier post, I really didn't have a clear understanding of tracking vs.
guiding.

I also realize that beyond the barn door, guiding a camera accurately
through a long exposure would require a telescope on the mount. The photo
given in the Orion catalog, with a 35mm attached directly to the Min-EQ
mount, seems now next to ridiculous. You can't even try to compensate for
what you have ventured must be lackluster tracking, because there's no way
to guide!

My plan forward:

1) Binoc binoc binoc...maps and charts...learn well the sky
2) More star trail pictures. I definately have not exhausted creative
possibilities here.
3) Haig mount pictures. A nice ball head on the barn door should afford
plenty of constellation charting activity.
4) Use the $$$ saved up from time spent in 1,2,3 to select an initial
telescope and accessories package and practice observing visually, nailing
alignments, etc.
5) Piggybacked camera on the scope.
6) Prime-focus, probably with off-axis guiding to save $$$ by avoiding the
separate guidescope, and avoid consideration of other variables like
flexure.

I have been doing a good deal of terrestrial photography already. It's just
as obsessive a hobby, so my Minolta Scan Dual III stands ready to process
the future fruits of my efforts.

Thanks for your valued input!

Andrew Skretvedt, KGFK
http://www.wiktel.net/~atsdroid/lanpartyweb

_______________________________________________
Astro-Photo mailing list
Astro-Photo@seds.org
http://seds.org/mailman/listinfo/astro-photo