You know, I have 2 autoguiders, but never use them. It seems to me that at a certain point, the human being is no longer taking the picture. Guiding by eye and hand is where the skill & practice come in, also the enjoyment. If you don't have to do anything that requires skill, heck, just get your pictures from already-published sources and stay at home. When "everybody" can do it, it's no longer special or even interesting. While I'm wearing my Curmudgeon suit, I'd also state that a level tripod is not a prerequisite for accurate polar alignment. The only requirement is that the mount's polar axis be parallel with the earth's polar axis. I doubt that my tripod is ever level when polar aligned. A level tripod (mount head) is only helpful when following the star-drift method, but it is not actually required for true polar alignment. Rob's suggestion of pads under the legs is a good one. I always had a few small pieces of plywood in the car just for this. --- Rob Ratkowski <ratkwski@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
Joe
how bout an autoguider?? Get your alignment pretty good and let the silicon do the tracking corrections?? and then enjoy the evening .............. A few small round paver stones or pieces of 3/4" ply w/ a hole for the tripod to sit in will keep the tripod from sinking into soft-ish soils. We're lucky here, it's mostly lava ;^)
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