I haven't been in my observatory for some time now. I think it has been over 6 months since I finished installing my new pier. It seemed like whenever I found time to head out and get everything aligned, the weather wouldn't cooperate. Weather, plus my numerous other interests got in the way. With my retirement at the beginning of 2018 I decided it was time to activate the observatory once again.
I had removed several pieces of equipment, since we encountered a stretch of minus 30 degree Celcius weather in late 2017. As I reassembled all the pieces, I encountered a problem with my Celestron Nightscape CCD camera. I couldn't get it to connect to my computer, and after investigating further, I discovered that the USB connection in the camera was loose. This is something well beyond my soldering skills due to the miniature size of the leads coming off the connector. After checking a few sources, including directly with Celestron, I have come to the sad realization that this camera may not be repairable. So far I haven't found anyone willing to perform the repair. The USB connection is apparently a common problem for these cameras - and I had hoped that Celestron would have provided some level of service in repairing the problem. I wasn't expecting it to be repaired under warranty - I offered to pay! There are currently a number of these refurbished cameras available from dealers, but I can't bring myself to spend another $800 for a refurbished unit. That's the last Celestron product I purchase.
So, my backup plan is my Nikon D7100 DSLR. After checking with Stellarvue (those guys provide great support) on the appropriate backfocus needed from the field flattener, I ventured out for a trial run. I've never used a DLSR on my Stellarvue SVR-105 for deep sky imaging, but with the use of Sequence Generator Pro I managed to get a few different long exposures of the Orion Nebula. I wasn't sure of what my results would be, so I only took a couple of dark and bias frames, and skipped taking any flats.
I have to say, after some quick processing in Pixinsight, I am quite pleased with the results.