I’ve had all kinds of issues with my sequences but I’m so happy to say that last night, for the first time everything ran perfectly. I woke up refreshed (even though I kept an eye on the iPad with TeamViewer) on all every once in a while and there it was, beautiful exposures waiting for me! The issues with the Meridian Flip and Autofocus solved. Ahhh now just fingers crossed to get a similar result every clear night! I did however notice that I should have had more exposures than I ended up with and I had my autofocus set to run every 1 degree difference, would this option restart my frame? I had a lot of temperature drop yesterday, it went from 15 C to 3 C from beginning to end of session.
Did you see my question about the AF temperature change and restarting frames? I’m really curious to find out if focusing every 1 degree would restart my exposures or does it wait until the exposure is over and then re-focus?
my question would be, is it really necessary to refocus every ONE degree ?? I thought like every 5 degrees would be just fine or does it depend on individual setups ???
It really depends on your equipment. For some very sensitive setups, even 1deg is too much. For my 6" f/8 refractor I have it set to refocus every 1deg. For my 80mm f/4.5 refractor (with a much wider FOV and larger image scale) I refocus every 1.5deg. (I could probably go with a higher temp on the 80mm).
I refocus every 1 degree on my F/6.5 130mm refractor. The change in focus and position is noticeable.
So like Joel says “it depends”. If you have a carbon tube and generally stable optics then 1 degree is likely too sensitive. If you have a big long refractor with a large aluminum or steel tube than 1 degree is probably too little. Also these are degrees Celsius which is about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit.