Went back out with no power supply and stayed until the laptop ran out of energy. I lowered the frame rate in Stellarium to reduce its energy consumption but had to come in after about 2 hours or so.
Seeing conditions looked average. And there were also gusts of wind.
I also replace the faceted bolt that drives the platform with a non-faceted one and wrapped it with anti-slip tape hoping the movement would be less jerky. There were still plenty of jumps causing bad frames which unfortunately are integrated in the stacks. I tried playing with the FWHM filter setting to have those frames automatically excluded but did not succeed. I also had trouble adjusting the motor speed. Maybe less traction than with the faceted bolt? Or maybe the battery needs to be replaced?
The EQ platform is definitely the weakest link in my setup!
Observations:
- C65 Sculptor Galaxy
- Mel 3 Globular Cluster - Sculptor
- C56 Skull Nebula - Cetus
- M74 Phantom Galaxy - Pisces
- M33 Triangulum Galaxy
- M31 Andromeda Galaxy and M32
- M76 Little Dumbbell Nebula - Perseus
- M45 Pleiades - Taurus - trying to see the nebulosity around the stars
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| C65 Sculptor Galaxy |
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| Mel 3 |
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| C56 Skull Nebula |
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| M74 Phantom Galaxy |
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| M33 Triangulum Galaxy |
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| M31 Andromeda Galaxy and M32 |
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| M76 Little Dumbbell Nebula |
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| M45 Pleiades |