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 I try to log my observing and related activities in a regular blog - sometimes there will be a delay but I usually catch up. An index of all my blogs is on the main menu at the top of the page with daily, weekly or monthly views. My Twitter feed is below. I am also interested in photograping wildlife when I can and there is a menu option above to look at some of my images. I try to keep the news feeds from relevant astronomical sources up to date and you will need to scroll down to find these.

The Celestron 14 is mounted on a Paramount ME that I have been using for about 10 years now - you can see that it is mounted on a tripod so is a portable set up. I still manage to transport it on my own and set it all up even though I have just turned 70! It will run for hours centering galaxies in the 12 minute field even when tripod mounted.

 

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Friday
Jul122019

Finally setting up in Spain again!

DateFriday, July 12, 2019 at 6:48AM

After a couple of months back in the UK I am finally able to start some practical astronomy in sunny Andalucia. The temperature is over 30 degrees C every day - just the way i like it. I have purchased a William Optics Redcat 51 lens to get some wide angle images at f/4.9 250  mm focal length. I want to use this in the UK as part of my portable set up with a Canon 40D camera so over the last few days I have put this together with my Skywatcher Star Adventurer setup that I describe below. First of all this is what the setup looks like.

The system is self sufficient in that the rechargeable battery pack mounted on a 'cold' shoe on top of the Canon 40D provides power for the camera and the mount, enabling an entire night of imaging without recharging. I have tested the battery pack on the mount alone and it was still driving after 24 hours. This means that there are no internal batteries on the mount and no need to replace the camera battery. A dummy camera battery is supplied from the external battery pack. 

 

The image above shows the battery pack. On the left the 'USB OUT' output at 5 Volts goes to the mini USB power input to the Star Adventurer mount. The 'DC9VOUT' output goes to the dummy battery in the Canon 40D. Note that the output voltage of 9V is slightly higher than the rated voltage inut for the camera power from a normal Canon battery. I read up on this when I first set this up and risked it followig the experience of others.  

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