I am pleased to announce the arrival of a new camera who has now joined my family of imaging apparatus. The ZWO joins its siblings (a QSI683 and a Canon 60Da) and I'm sure that they will have much to chat about as time goes on.

I've purchased this little one to marry up with the Sky Watcher Star Adventurer mount to service as a convenient travelling rig which is easy to set up. The intent is to use higher gain and short subs to keep the exposure time down and image without having to guide. One less thing to worry about when on the road.

I've run up the Samyang 14mm lens (shown in the photo) with the 60Da on the Sky Watcher previously and can go to three minutes subs quite easily without any obvious star trailing. I hope to be able to use the 200mm lens as well but haven't had a chance to run this up yet so will be interesting to see how we go.

I've also purchased the ZWO holder ring and was testing the balance point as you can see in the photo with the wooden dowel. I don't know if it is by design but at least with this lens the DEC balance point sits pretty darn close to where the screw point is. Very convenient.

ZWO provide a good range of spacers in the box plus there were quite a number that came with the ZWO-EOS lens adapter so there are plenty of options to get the back focus spacing right.

Of course the inevitable happens when one buys new hardware and it has come over cloudy with storms forecast. I guess I will have to wait until someone else in NSW buys some new hardware and the clouds move off to their place

Will be happy to provide first light reports as soon as we get a chance.