The First Light....

After waiting 5 days for clear sky, at last today i got chance to use my new setup.
also just yesterday i received my Mead LPI camera too.. So its good time to test all things together.

I carried everything to terrace with help of Mandar, and setup mount Mead LXD75 and AstroTech 66ED refractor... and without counter weight !!! even with single counter weight i cant balance scope, it just too light for 10LBs counter weight....

It was dammn chilling... -4 Celsius !!!

The sky was clear but very bright due to glow from NewY ork Manhattan and Jersey City lights.... the Orion Nebula was hardly visible in telescope!!!

I setup mount with polar finder as close as possible to north pole.... and set mount for easy align method... It set Capella first and as soon i set it manually and hit enter on Autostar keypad it moved to next star Dhube... Telescope swelled and in low power field the Dhube was right there...alignment complete !!!

Its time to test GoTo capability, object i asked to set is MARs and goto scope did it right at first time.... mars was just below the center of field... Not BAD at all...

I tried to search Comet Holmes but cant find it due to bright sky, next i setup M45 and used Mead LPI to capture pics but the Field of frame is not enough so i switched to All Time favorite of First Time Astro-Graphers... ORION NEBULA...

I used Mead LPI on 400mm AT66ED...

here is the result of First attempt...stack of 3 pics 5, 8 and 11 sec.... combined using Registax.... As LPI is not meant for deepsky photos i was not expecting something deferent than what i got...

But still its my first Pic on owned setup :)



Cheers
Sameer