I spent four nights doing astro-imaging at Indian Trail Springs in the Ochocco Mountains from Tuesday July 9th to Saturday July 13th. The first two nights were spent using my C8 Schmidt-Cassegrain and the last two nights I used my 80mm Orion EON refractor. I wasn't pleased with my auto-guiding the first two nights and it was that which prompted me to switch to my refractor the third night. Part of this was due to an out-of-focus guide scope (50mm Orion)... something I eventually corrected... but I don't think that was the whole story. While my guiding with the refractor was better, it still showed the variation observed on the C8, just with smaller amplitude. My best guiding was on the last night with the refractor and in particular when I was tracking west of the meridian. The one picture I feel is worthy of posting here is an image of the Easter Veil Nebula, NGC 6992, which was based on the median of 21 five-minute exposures with the refractor (see below).
Moving forward, I want to improve my guiding with the C8 and I'd like to again try using off-axis guiding. The last time I tried it I almost located a guide-star, but lost it and gave up in frustration. My plan this time is to try using a more sensitive guide camera (my ST-402) rather than the usual Orion Starshoot Autoguider. I'm going to try this out some time before the next new moon and hopefully be ready to do some improved imaging with my C8 in August. Whether I go to the Oregon Star Party or not is still up in the air, dependent upon forest fires, weather, and whether I want to deal with such a large crowd of people.
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