Tonight I polar-aligned my scope (though not very exactly) and started searching for deep-sky objects to photograph. It was far more difficult than I had expected. Though I was dialing in locations based on RA and Dec setting circles with pretty good accuracy, I was not having any success in finding objects... even in my 8x50 finder. Some of these were supposed to be fairly bright objects. I suspect that a big part of the problem is the not-so-dark skies of suburban Portland. On the verge of giving up, I finally succeeded in locating one... M3, a globular cluster. I ended up seeing it not in my finder, but in directly through my camera's view-finder, hooked up for prime-focus photography. The magnification is slightly more than when I use a 30mm lens, but the camera's field of view is cut-down. I used my standard 30", 1600 Iso, with noise-reduction 'on' (Nikon D40) and this time of course used the clock-drive. I can't say I'm thrilled with the photo (mine is the lower photo, compared with what it is supposed to look like... the top photo), which clearly isn't showing many of the stars and is probably a little out of focus, but for a first try I guess it's okay. Based upon what I see, I think that I need longer exposures, which means I need to try again with darker skies and better polar alignment. I may find I'm near the limit of my DSLR, which would probably mean I'd by a CCD camera designed for astro-photography (with cooling, hence less noise). I also need to look at accessories that allow me to use a lens at the same time as my camera, to aid in finding objects (it's harder seeing objects through the camera's finder) and focusing.
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