With the help of a very experienced amateur-astronomer we were able to align the Astrotechniek CP-180 mount. After that I checked alignment with EQalign. It showed that alignment was well within 0.5arcsec on both axes, we left it like this. The azimuth of the mount is max. adjusted on the ad-hoc modified plate extension. The mount also had to be tilted backwards (like before). This mount was certainly built for lower latitudes. I already expected this during the first trials, but now I'm sure.
After that I tested autoguiding with PHD, the 100% aggressiveness was readjusted to 20%.
With the stainless steel Bahtinov mask and live view on the Eos the Tak was very quickly focused.
60s. test-exposures (with Hutech-LPS-P2 filter with full moon) were made of Aldebaran. In the corners I still saw minor coma, can be miscollimation.
Current status: mount well aligned, focus ok, autoguiding ok.
Next steps:
- Bring laptop of Halley people in order so it also works with the mount and the autoguiding
- Careful collimation of the Takahashi
- Search for max. exposure time @ISO800 with LPS-P2 and Halpha filters during night without moon.
It was a good evening/night, now we are ready for some nice astrophotography with this setup......to be continued.
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2 comments:
Any tips on collimation of the e300? I'm using a laser, but non barlowed- did you have success with the barlow? Thanks! Glad to see another e300 user out there.
Indeed very nice to hear from a fellow E300 user, there are only a few of them in the world. I never collimated the E300 before, but want to use the barlowed laser method, same as with my own 200mmF5 newtonian. I have no idea on how to adjust or reach the secondary mirror, any tips would be very welcome!
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