Jupiter and Ganymede

ceejay

I took advantage of the clear skies on Saturday night to try and polar align my Celestron NexStar 4SE. I'm pretty sure I followed the directions properly, but the GoTo function on the scope is still not working right for me. I'm sure I'm just doing something simple that's incorrect, but it does annoy me nevertheless

In any case, Jupiter was hard to miss, so I grabbed the image below using my NexImage CCD sensor, and stacked it using Registax 6.1.


Jupiter and Ganymede

I wasn't sure which moon of Jupiter was captured in the image (I could see three moons through the eyepiece), so I used this handy JavaScript tool to work out that it was Ganymede:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/javascript/jupiter#


I think my focus was a little off, but it's quite hard to focus the scope properly with the NexImage, particularly as its plane of focus is different to my eyepieces. I'm considering making my own Bahtinov mask, but I'm not sure how easy it will be to use with the CCD.

I'm also thinking there might be a way to either connect the NexImage to the camera opening at the back of the scope so that I can just use the mirror flip knob and focus through the eyepiece - does anyone know if that is possible, are there suitable attachments? The CCD doesn't fit that opening by itself, perhaps there's the equivalent of a T-adapter for it? I didn't find any official Celestron adapter though.

Anyway, great to have some clear skies, and someday I'll get my scope alignment process sorted out so that the GoTo works properly, and I can actually use the Sky Tour function

ZeRoY

ceejay wrote: »

I'm also thinking there might be a way to either connect the NexImage to the camera opening at the back of the scope so that I can just use the mirror flip knob and focus through the eyepiece - does anyone know if that is possible, are there suitable attachments?

I believe there are, Check Amazon for Celestron accessories.