I have not used my Meade LX-90 telescope since June 2012, when I decided to make a change of direction and concentrate my astronomy efforts on imaging with a camera mounted on a tripod.
My last Field Night, 8th December 2012, was ruined by persistent clouds. However, I did obtain three images which were enough to show me that the Vixen Polarie camera mount was a good investment. Click the images for enlargement.
Apologies for the images not fitting the 520 pixel wide blog template (sometimes "ugly" is better):
The Orion Constellation finally peeked out from behind the alto-cumulus.
The three images showed pin-point stars on my 22" monitor, although zooming them well beyond normal screen size did reveal trails.
The Orion constellation, with its two brightest stars, Rigel centre left and Betelgeuse, centre right - also showing the Orion Nebula and the three belt stars.
The two darker images had to be drastically enhanced to cut out most of the clouds.
The Pleiades, a star forming region in the Taurus constellation.
After this field test, I now know that I need to improve my polar alignment technique for the Polarie, if I want to take longer exposure images. Setting the latitude to 34 degrees is easy but levelling the mount and aiming at true South involved some inaccuracies. I cut mysef two set squares to assist with this. One set square contained the angles 90/56/34, which I used in conjunction with a spirit level to adjust the mount angle to 34 degrees latitude. The other set square contained angles of 90/78/12, which gave me a bit of an idea how far to adjust from magnetic south.
Two home made set squares, one for latitude adjustment, the other for adjusting the angle between Magnetic South and True South.
The 34 degree set square was of great assistance but the method only gives an approximation. The Southerly twelve degree adjustment was of lesser value, due to lack of method.
I also realised that the Polarie tripod was potentially unstable without cross-bracing and my MAS friend Chris Malikoff gave me a tip about fixing that.