Weekend Antics - Part 1

Been looking forward to the weekend for a couple of weeks as the nights gave been getting better and better as well as there being no pesky moon around to ruin the view. Was really keen to give the CCD a good run after the preliminarily shots showed a lot of promise.
I ordered a Orion deluxe off-axis guider (OAG) from Bintel which arrived on Friday too so I could go with out using a separate guide scope and hopefully get better accuracy.

Got to the Windfarm look out at dusk and setup the scope in a spot with the least wind. Took a while to get correct collimation and then fired everything up. The problem with using new equipment is not knowing how it works and doesn't work and the Orion OAG was bit of both. The CCD was easy to mount and quickly achieve focus but no matter what I did I could not get the guide camera to get anywhere near focus never mind find a focus star. I was just about give up on the OAG and go with the trusty guide scope when the wind blew up and changed direction thus ruining the sheltered position I had setup. That was too much as I could not be bothered moving and realigning the scope to have the wind turn again so I gave up for the night.

Clive who came along as well had a lot better luck than I with his trusty 8" Dob, he managed to get some real nice shots. Not bad for his first go at astrophography with his new setup and learning the art of processing. Certainly a lot better than my first attempts at imaging that's for sure. Here is Clive's haul from Friday night.