I finally had an opportunity to capture Mars with my planetary setup. It was still very low on my horizon at around 1AM so considering the results I am very excited to see what it looks like later in the year and closer to the Meridian. For now this picture will suffice and I will return to capturing the planet when it's up higher, much earlier. This guy is getting too old for all nighters.

Mars - October 29th, 2024

I recently picked up a flip mirror diagonal that I can't believe I've been living without for all this time. It's been on my want list for a while now but I wasn't ready to spend the money on it since I didn't think it was too hard to get the planets in the FOV of the camera but man, once I tested this thing last night it was money well spent. It was such a breeze to center the planets in the eyepiece, and then flip the mirror and seeing the planet on my screen in the FOV instantly. It's shaved off a good 10 - 20 minutes of frustration during my session.

For example, I was able to get Neptune in the field of view of the camera in less than a minute. That's a big deal when you're running a tiny sensor through a 2x Barlow!

At the end of the night I was able to keep the computer in the house, slew to the planet, walk outside in the frigid cold real quick and center the planet in the eyepiece and then walk inside with confidence the planet would be in the field of view on my screen.

In the past this would have taken a lot of effort (especially with Uranus and Neptune) with blind slews to the west/north/east/south, just hoping I would see the planet pass by the FOV.

Definitely a must have accessory!