I'm enjoying the rain and clouds you sent my way Sonny, oh yea ! good shootin !

Really nice detail especially along the terminator.

Nice stars and detail in all of them , good job.

Awesome Jim , it's a 2 bagger.

I just keep pluggin away , one of these nights it'll click and I'll understand what I'm doing wrong. Thanks Sonny and imaging and March madness go hand and hand.

I may not be running a sequence quite yet but, I'm getting things learned at my own pace. I kicked my tripod and that was it for guiding for last night , although I just closed SGP after plate solving and went to Sharpcap 3.0 and did some "Live Stacking" just for S&G 27 @ 60s frames and 11 @ 90s = 43 minutes of Luminous. The use of dark calibration will eliminate the ampglow in the lower right corner but, I'm getting closer and enjoying the ride on the learning train.

Bode's galaxy{m81} Ursa Major

This was my plate solve and frame & align that I did per instructions, that Ed sent to me in a email that he performed the night before remote to my capture computer. I spent 2 to 3 hrs out in the frigid each night watching and learning then I was on my own on night 2 and I almost ran a sequence with it guiding. This is starting to stick , maybe another night and I'll be taking down m82 in RGB. WOOHOO ! I've got my fingers crossed , this is astrophotography anything can and will go wrong. I've got the bad shakes on my right side. That's why it looks like crud, could you imagine if I touched the mount after aligning? HAVOC !

I must love the misery of the cold , I thought I would be in the warm most of the night . There was a hitch that I just couldn't figure out. here's my screen shots of my progress but, for some strange reason I was unable to run a sequence . I chalk it up to learning experience and I shake like a leaf if not using my tripod.

I was rushing and frustrated , I'm glad they put those stray light rings in my tube . They caught the allen wrench and all is well, I'll not do that again . That could have been expensive Ed but, just think if I didn't replace the phillips screws that used to be there{phillips screwdriver} OH NO !

I had a success with my cables after readjusting and running it to the extreme limits, I ended up removing my polar scope "problem solved" for now . I think another will arise when I least expect it ! As for MY 7 port hub and 6 outlet powerstrip with surge protect, each is on a leg and I've got Velcro strips on all the legs in the case I need to move them. Velcro , reuseable Nellie ties and "duck tape" are my best friends. I've got a PO'mans imaging rig and it comes a piece at a time , right now it's my pride and joy . Now we got the "Bitter cold" coming , back to square one.

I'll tell ya Sonny , your posts always get me chuckling after a night of blundering and equipment failures. Thank buddy for the support.

I had another night of all kinds of problems to deal with , 1st my collimation feel out when a mirror slipped , then my allen wrench fell in my tube, I had to start all over again. Disconnected all my cables and removed my main camera from the ota took the tube off dumped my allen wrench out and recollimated. All was going good after that until I slewed to Orion and started my sequence, my focuser wouldn't keep my focus . Then my cables to my QHY5ll-m guidecam was pinching the mount ,I moved it out of the way hoping that I didn't have to realign again. I've got to figure this out, cable management is not as easy as it's being portrayed to be. I did get going and ran a set and forget sequence in rgb with the frustration of having to refocus every filter change and then I was in a tree at about 1130est and the moon was starting to really beam . I ran another dark library to replace the one that disappeared when I passed my hand over my touch pad earlier that night{ it just vanished somewhere in my computer} I just want to kick something! Some time during the 1 1/2 hr sequence of darks , the focuser slipped out again and Yes, I felt like kicking something . How many have nights like my last 2 nights in a row, when the sky is awesome : dew point in the low 30's , humidity low , temp cold mid 30's, 5mph wind and not a cloud to be found. I need to catch a break. I'm taking 3 steps forward and 2 steps backwards all Winter. Whom , I going to call , is there a focuserbuster out there. Any ideas as to how to get my focuser to hold the weight without slipping everytime? I've aleady tightened the adjustment tension grub a million times and it'll hold for a lil' while and then start slipping again.

Sweet Brian !

Sonny , SGPro isn't for everyone and they give the trial just for that reason. I had it a week and couldn't even get it to switch off of the" lite" trial version without Jared {co-programmer} walking me through it. I liked it more than astrotortillia , horizon prism , maximDL , nebulosity even Sharpcap pro. Tools and ease of use is the deciding factor , I ran rgb sequences the night I got the paid version working. As far as the plate solve , that's a different story there. I'd say 2 nights to get it figured out that I was setting the wrong path and not repairing pinpoint was the only thing software wise keeping me from running. You get what you pay for and then some but, at a price though. Set it and forget it is the price for happiness.

Sonny ,I just can't believe how easy this Plate solve is. Pinpoint does all the work once you get everything that it requires to perform the operation. I wish I'd not been so leery about upgrading software , I got one thing knocked out and onto the next. I've only ran 4 sequences of LRGB @ maybe 10 min each , this is going to be a real time saver. Hopefully , the forecast will hold as awesome all weekend. Woohoo ! I'll still have "ole luna" up there bright as ever.