With the eclipse coming up on Monday and clear skies last night, first in quite a while, I figured I better at least try and do a polar alignment. I am using the Skywatcher Star Adventurer with advanced firmware. For the life of me I could not locate Ursa Major unless I stood out in the middle of the street, but on my back deck it just wasn't happening. OK, I got my app for sky viewing and set the longitude for my area, then tried to align the unit with what the app shows. Hmm, there is a bright star at the 8:30 mark in the polar scope so following the polar alignment for that time I moved the star to the appropriate spot on the grid. Is that Polaris? I just don't know for sure but it's a starting point. Set the camera up and tried a 180 second shot to see if there was any trailing going on. In the camera it was dark but looked pretty pinpoint to these old eyes. Changed the ISO to 400 and ended up with cream skies but still looked pinpoint to me. Let's try a 300 sec at 100 ISO. Sky was still creamy but somewhat darker and the stars still showed as pinpoint. Get outa Dodge! Did I actually nail Polaris on the first try? Here are the 3 test shots taken in town so yes you will see LP. These are all taken with a Canon 50D with 24-105 L set at 105 mm (168 mm equivalent) and f4. Comments more than welcome, especially from the pixel peepers. PP in LR and included lowering blacks and shadows, lightening whites and highlights, adding contrast, minimal noise reduction, white balance to more blue and I think that did it. Oh yes, I am aimed approx 15° right of Polaris, no reason, just saw some brighter stars there and had the tree tops for comparison. You can really see the trees trailing in the 5 minute exposure.

With the eclipse coming up on Monday and clear skies last night, first in quite a while, I figured I better at least try and do a polar alignment. I am using the Skywatcher Star Adventurer with advanced firmware. For the life of me I could not locate Ursa Major unless I stood out in the middle of the street, but on my back deck it just wasn't happening. OK, I got my app for sky viewing and set the longitude for my area, then tried to align the unit with what the app shows. Hmm, there is a bright star at the 8:30 mark in the polar scope so following the polar alignment for that time I moved the star to the appropriate spot on the grid. Is that Polaris? I just don't know for sure but it's a starting point. Set the camera up and tried a 180 second shot to see if there was any trailing going on. In the camera it was dark but looked pretty pinpoint to these old eyes. Changed the ISO to 400 and ended up with cream skies but still looked pinpoint to me. Let's try a 300 sec at 100 ISO. Sky was still creamy but somewhat darker and the stars still showed as pinpoint. Get outa Dodge! Did I actually nail Polaris on the first try? Here are the 3 test shots taken in town so yes you will see LP. These are all taken with a Canon 50D with 24-105 L set at 105 mm (168 mm equivalent) and f4. Comments more than welcome, especially from the pixel peepers. PP in LR and included lowering blacks and shadows, lightening whites and highlights, adding contrast, minimal noise reduction, white balance to more blue and I think that did it. Oh yes, I am aimed approx 15° right of Polaris, no reason, just saw some brighter stars there and had the tree tops for comparison. You can really see the trees trailing in the 5 minute exposure.