Unlike many of my Astrobin friends, I had a number of good imaging opportunities this August. Very few nights were perfectly clear, but many offered at least a few promising hours. Much to my wife's chagrin, I left the mount in the yard for several weeks to take advantage of them.
Because many evenings started cloudy but were expected to clear after midnight, I decided that additional automation would be helpful, and I finally installed the ZWO EAF focus motor that had arrived a couple months ago. I was hesitant to install it because there is no standard bracket for attaching it to the Celestron C6. Fortunately,
Buckeyestargazer had me covered, designing and
3D-printing a bracket that was perfectly adapted to the purpose. It works like a dream.
This is the first project I've completed with the aid of the the EAF, and I'm sold on it. I really enjoyed setting the Bahtinov mask aside and watching the ASI accessories work their magic. I will never achieve pinpoint stars on my C6/Hyperstar system, but the EAF should help me keep those stars as tight as possible.
Even after six hours of integration, the image is a little noisier than I expected. I suppose that's the price of broadband imaging under Bortle 8 skies. Still, this marks an improvement over
my first Pac-Man image last fall, and I'm pleased with the progress. Clear skies!
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