All this testing of camera and mounts I’ve been doing lately is for Comet Panstarrs. It is very low in the west at sunset now, but it is getting higher each night. It should be high enough out of the muck to see by March 12, 2013, when it will be next to the moon right at twilight.
Jupiter in Taurus w/Pleiades. 5×120 sec @ ISO 1600, 28mm F/5.6.
Here’s a single 30 second exposure with my 28mm F/2.8 lens and my camera mounted on an old CG3 style mount with a simple clock drive. I had a Bogen ball-head camera mount so I could position the camera. The mount works well at this focal length for 30 seconds. Too bad there were clouds.
The Orion and Taurus constellations taken with a 28mm F/2.8 lens. The camera used is a Canon XS at ISO 1600 and was mounted on a regular tripod. I used 3×20 sec exposures combined in IRIS. Calibration frames were from old data. Bright Jupiter is visible on the right. Even with just 20 seconds for exposure, the stars trailed due to the Earth’s rotation. I had to do some star rounding in PS to correct it somewhat.