Tonight I tried a grand experiment. I found my old dusty Meade 60mm drugstore telescope that the main tube is so bad that it is basically unuseable. My parents meant well many decades ago and it was a starter scope. ANyhow I took a block of wood, drilled and cut a tube diameter on one side, fit a bolt through the middle and attempted to mount the 5D to the main tube directly above the telescope mount. It does not look pretty but it does stay in place with two metal straps. This mount does not have a motor, only two slow-jerky motion manual controls. The added weight of the camera and a 24-70mm does not help either. Anyway I got it halfway balanced and gave Orion and both Canis' a shot with this contraption. The end result is not as good as I hoped but then not a horrible as I thought it might possibly become. A change from my star trails at least for me. Here are two images from this evening. I like the longer exposure for the colors but I can not track well enough to keep good star shapes. The shorter exposure star shapes look better but the colors are definately waning.
First image: Camera Canon 5D, ISO 200, TV 554sec. (9.24 minutes) AV 7.1, Lens 24-70mm @ 40mm, no filters, single exposure, noise reduction on
Second image: Camera Canon 5D, ISO 200, TV 145sec. (2.42 minutes), AV 7.1, Lens 24-70mm @ 32mm, no filers, single exposure, noise reduction on
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