Astronomy and Astrofotography

Unfortunately, I have had relatively short windows so far, usually shortly clouds started covering the sky. I aimed the telescope approximately to north. Then I made a 2-star alignment. Some times I tried to improve the accuracy with a third star. After that I drove different objects with the GoTo. Mars and Orion Nebula were not visible in the eyepiece and I had to correct by hand. The Andromeda galaxy (near Zenith) was always visible in the eyepiece. Even when I did the aligment with StarSense (including calibration and re-alignment afterwards), the accuracy of the GoTo was poor. On the Internet, I found some post regarding the same problem. So I did a factory reset as described there. Then I did a new alignment, calibration and re-alignment with StarSense. And indeed, the GoTo worked fine afterwards. All approached objects were visible in the center of the eyepiece. So I ventured a few shots of the Orion Nebula and the Andromeda galaxy with the EOS 550D. The selected ISO ...

The Celestron SkyPortal WiFi module is a good thing. Unfortunately, it did not work. I could not connect. Even after a barter against a new device, it did not work. Probably there is some strong source of interference nearby which disturbs the WiFi when the telescope is in the observation area. In the garage, it works properly. But I will analyze this problem later. So I did the 2-star alignment with the hand controller. Finally I could look at a few objects: - Mars - Moon - Orion Nebula - Andromeda Galaxy However, apart from the Andromeda galaxy, the GoTo was pretty bad and the objects were not visible in the eyepiece. I always had to correct a bit. I tried to make some fotos. The seeing was not very good, so I could not take a good picture of Mars. Even the Orion Nebula was not really useful, as shaken by the vibrations when triggered the image. But the goal was only to check the exposure rates until the nebula is visible on the foto, so that worked. The moon was reason...

After a long evaluation, I decided to buy a Celestron 9.25 with Advanced VX mount. On 13.12.2018, I drove to Zurich to ProAstro / Kochfoto to buy the new telesoce. At the same time I bought a few eyepieces, as well as the Celestron NexImage 10. I wanted to use these to take photos of the moon and the planets. At home I immediately unpacked and assembled everything. Then I adjusted the scope immediately while it was still light. Before the clouds came I could just watch the moon for a moment. I hoped that there will be a few clear nights during the Christmas holidays where I can make my first steps. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

When I went to school, I became more and more interested in astronomy. I was lucky enough to get a Meade 15cm Newton reflector with 1.2m focal length. So I spend some nights outside watching different objects. At that time I also made first attempts with a SLR camera to take pictures. Here is an image of my old Meade Newton reflector: