Astrophotography with the 12" F/4 newtonian in Sierra Vista

Here are the first light images with the new telescope setup. The equatorial mount worked great. The polar scope made polar alignment quick and easy and I was able to obtain 90sec exposures with round stars right off the bat. Once I did a 1 star alignment the GOTO function was spot on, we used the sky view planetarium software in the SiTech software to slew the telescope around.

I tried using the Coma corrector, incorrectly, and ended up with some unflattering images. I pulled the corrector out for all the images seen on this page. The images here are all 60second single frames, no dark frame subtraction, no alteration except for cropping. The camera was at prime focus, ISO 800(accept for the moon shot).

Lanna's family was there and got to see the telescope "rig". Next time I will remember to take some pictures of everyone and the telescope setup.

We will hopefully be setting the telescope again on Kitt Peak this weekend. I will be trying out a new auto guider and the coma corrector in the correct configuration.