New Clock Drive and Some Saturn Images

Built a new clock drive using a stepper motor that has far less vibration than the other one I used, and it appears to be pretty smooth.  Unfortunately, I didnt have the scope polar aligned very well, but it seemed to track in RA pretty well.  I'm not seeing any vibration blur, and I havent even attempted any vibration dampening tricks, so I think I have a winner.

I took a couple of Saturn images.  Seeing was about a 5 and transparency about a 3-4, so the conditions werent near as good as on the 14th.  It was clear enough however to test the drive, which was my plan.

Here is what I took.  One image I used the camera zoom, and used it to an extreme.  I think if seeing was better, I would have had much better images.  Weather is hot and humid, and even after sundown, it hasnt appeared to have cooled much.

This is the image which I used the camera zoom.

I was not able to get the Storm in any of these images, either because of seeing, or possibly the transparency, or perhaps I might not have had the focus as good as the other night.  It looked good on the screen, the rings seemed pretty sharp.  I'm thinking it was because of the conditions actually.

The clock seemed to work very well, it is geared down substantially, which may help with any vibration issues, but this motor has far less vibration than the one I had been using.