Hobbies

[nalkin]

Originally Posted by mgellan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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What program did you use to process that picture? What kind of camera/ccd do you have? And what type of scopes are they? Both on a motorized mount?

[mgellan]

Originally Posted by nalkin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What program did you use to process that picture? What kind of camera/ccd do you have? And what type of scopes are they? Both on a motorized mount?

I use Nebulosity from Stark labs with a Canon XTi for one shot color and a Meade DSI Pro II for mono (generally photometry because it has linear response, which is important in measuring the brightnesses of stars - in photometry you measure the relative brightnesses of stars in a frame to determine the brightness of a variable star/asteroid to generate a light curve that tells you lots about the star's intrinsic characteristics etc.) The 8" is the workhorse for photography, its a Celestron 8" on an ASGT (goto) mount. There's an 80mm refracter mounted on top of the scope with a Meade DSI Pro for autoguiding using PHD Guiding, also from Stark. The mount isn't all that precise so I have some software from Cyanogen on the observatory computer called MaxPoint that corrects positioning info from a model of the errors that the mount has so GOTO is pretty precise, which is critical when doing photometry since one starfield looks much like another until you learn it [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Here's a pic of my shed with a rolloff roof, with the scope visible. This was before I mounted the 80mm. You can see the hotbox I run the computer in (with a heater, it gets to -40C here in the winter, and I've learned computers don't work well when it's that cold! Then again neither do I - the computer is on the house wireless so I run the scope via VNC in the winter and when the skeeters are really bad in the summer)

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The 12" is a Meade Lightbridge that I use for visual stuff at dark sites - really nice scope. Here's a pic of me rolling it around on a custom cart at a Star Party.

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The Meade is getting remounted on a less heavy mount with new bearings so I can mount a Meade Autostar setup with DS motors to make the scope GOTO and track.

Regards,
Mg