[Alex Paul]

Don: I love the scope idea... It is a great way to maintain good alignment.... If you can slew smoothly to keep it where it is originally set up it a winner in every way... I think as long as you can calculate your longest acceptable exposures with out trailing.... that is the key to a good clean stack... With auto aligning in Registax and I assume others, as long as the subject is approximately in the same location in each frame the auto align feature will accept or reject the stackable images and if the exposure has to be short to be clean just shoot more frames.... The fewer frames involved with the stack the easier it is to get stellar results, however without solid, smooth, and accurate tracking capabilites the longer exposures aren't possible so you use more frames to build the image..... I am sure you already know all of this but I thought it was worth mentioning again....... You guys are an inspiration and are proving that minimalism is an excellent option once the needed technique is sorted out..... Thanks Don..... I need to get my stuff outside and start getting reaquainted with everything again.... I have an injured rotator cuff at the moment and need to be careful for a while, and with the bright moon and less than clear skies I think it may be a little while before the heavy artillery is utilized......Alex