My first piggyback

And oh, what a steep learning curve it is! At least I learned what NOT to do while out. I had a heck of a time getting the mount aligned. I don't know what my problem was. It took me almost an hour and a half in 25 degree weather to get it somewhat usable for 50mm widefields. The last time I went out, alignment and calibration was a breeze, and I could keep objects in the eyepiece at dead center for what seemed like a long time. Anyhoo, I think I had the mount too far to the east, because once I shifted it to the west, Vega was much easier to find as my first alignment star. It wasn't AS far down from the bottom of the eyepiece. I'd love to get some more help on this drift alignment stuff, if any of you are willing.... I wish someone was closer, because I learn more by seeing and then doing than reading, but if any of you can help explain it better, that would be awesome. So, on to the story..... After messing around with the mount, I finally am ready to start imaging, and decide to go for the NA nebula region around Deneb, as my primary target, Orion, was starting to have thin light clouds obscure it. I finally get it composed how I like it, set the remote, hop in the truck to turn it on so I can start feeling my fingers and toes, and...... nothing. I killed the battery of the truck with the mount. Ooops! Guess this is why everybody suggested a deep cycle marine battery. So, had to call hubby to jump start me. Even better, when I tried to turn the engine over, it interrupted power to the mount, so all subsequent shots were ruined. I ended up with only 3 usable frames for a total time of around 3 minutes. Not what I had planned. Even so, I still had drift that looked as though it was in a westerly direction, so what did I need to do to the mount?

This is the final image. No darks or flats, and quite a bit of PP done in Gimp, as I'm too poor to afford the good stuff . Not happy, because of what looks like LP on the lower right due to haze reflecting the light from a 30 mile away town of 25,000 to the east. But it is the first using a piggyback. Specs are: 50mm nifty fifty, ISO800, f/2.8, 1 30sec, 1 61 sec, and 1 90 sec shot combined in DSS. I planned on doing several frames of 60 second shots to lessen the drift.

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Well I think you did a great job considering all you went through. I too would like more info on drift aligning my CG5-GT. I'm still at the stage where most of my exposures are in the 30 second range. Those three images you captured look good in my eye.

Greg

Nice shot.

Drift Aligning does take a bit of getting used to, and it took me absolutely ages to get my head round the whole concept of which way to move the mount depending on which way the stars are drifting, especially when Drift Aligning for East/West errors. What I did was spend a good couple of hours aligning once, and then I marked my patio as to where the tripod legs had to go, and I always put them back in the same place, so I was always pretty well aligned. Not done that with my new mount yet.

LOL, if I could do that on the farm in the middle of a field, I'd be set! Yes, that is something that I need to have explained, preferably if the information could be placed in a table form so it could be used for easy reference.

There is a drift alignment simulator on this website http://www.petesastrop​hotography.com/

It will allow you to have a go at drift aligning, which hopefully will help you to understand the principles involved.

Sorarse, that is a nice help, for sure!