Posted by Andrea Tasselli at 09:50 on 2011 Jul 14
Hi Opu,You don’t need any equatorial platform to get deep sky images with a 28mm lens, just a decent tripod (or you can use the one of your SCT adding a bracket for cameras to the tube) and a remote to operate the camera. You can shoot for up to 15s around the celestial equator (and longer toward the poles). You then stack the set of images using the procedure and software described here:http://astrosurf.com/buil/iris/new430/new430_us.htm (scroll toward the bottom)Alternatively, you could use the LX90 in a fashion if you can lower one leg enough for the tube to point to the North Pole and adjust the position in azimuth of the mount. This is a kind of makeshift equatorial that could potential provide up to 1 minute exposure time (that depends on how accurate your tube axis is pointing to the pole). This should be feasible at your latitudes since the tube inclination is moderate.Andrea T.