[fluffybunny]

Y’all might think this is weird, but what’s exciting for me (maybe even more exciting than the win) is my 11th place! It was the last spot I needed to complete my “1st-25th card” (1st-31st technically). I don’t know why 11th took so long but every time I thought I had it, I’d end up in either 10th or 12th instead.

Here ya go CISS:

[fluffybunny]

I have two working telescopes currently, the third being the 16″ Newt that I’m building.

Working telescope #1 is an equatorial fork C8 Ultima, f10 with 6.3 focal reducer.
about halfway down the page

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http://www.telescopebluebook.com/sct/celestron.htm

Working telescope #2 is a GEM mounted 120mm f5 Achromat.
OTA

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http://www.cloudynights.com/classifieds/showproduct.php?product=61717&sort=&cat=all&page=1
mount

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http://www.astro-baby.com/heq5-rebuild/heq5-m1.htm

I plan on having an auto guiding subsystem for one or both of them.

So the way I understand it, there are two basic types of tracking system errors; the quick sharp “catch” type motion of footsteps, wind, or bearing/gear defects and the slow error of less than perfect polar alignment. The auto guider can compensate for the latter but not the former.

I appreciate you relating the field experience you’ve had, it gives me at least a vague ballpark of what I can expect to get in terms of maximum exposure length. Your first explanation using bucket depth was also useful in reaffirming a suspicion I’ve had but never followed up on; you can use many short exposures but there is an optimum length and less than this value you will start to miss details.

[fluffybunny]

Can there be more than two colors as long as the third is not dominant?

I’m not a CloudDancer but this is pretty much the way I’m going. It’s going to be really hard (for me anyways) if not loosely interpreted.

[fluffybunny]

Many thanks to the two of you. Your tutorials compliment each other quite well, supporting and bringing together the details floating around in my head that have gathered there for some time. Excellent! Now I just need some time (this always kills me), clear skies (currently wrong season) and a few technical details (modifying my hand controller to accept guiding input from GPUSB, mounting the guide scope and so on).

On a note related to that last parenthetic point, do either of you have experience with auto guiding? I am wondering how good of a polar alignment I need to make
if I have an auto guider. My normal alignment is “good enough” for visual work and I hope I don’t have to spend a lot of time doing drift alignments, during what I already know to be an otherwise time intensive activity.

[fluffybunny]

Chupa,

You’ve got me wondering just how low I can drop the R/G/B sensitivity with camera settings; that would eliminate the filter issue if it can be dropped to 0.

Veeeeerry interestink. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, or at least hear back on what you find out.

I figured the Newt would work that way, and I plan on giving it a try when I get the 16 finished, knowing I might have to invest in a coma corrector.

You have discussed somewhat your post procedures and software but do you mind elaborating? I seem to remember that you use ImageMagick for some things.

Rav,

The crop idea might be the easiest, and I’m all about easy when I can get it. I was going to try Andromeda as a first target and Ron Wodaski’s CCD Calculator says I should be able to get the whole thing in one shot, maybe two and stitching. Cropping would add more sub frames so I was trying to think about novel ways to use the RAW data from our daily shooters before I went that route.

[fluffybunny]

Hey chupa,

I’ve been circling astrophotography for a while now. My current plan is to start with my wide field 120mm f5 achromat and a guide scope (probably one of my manual Nikon telephotos with a DSI-I hanging off the back). I don’t have any serious cameras, the best “astro” camera being a DSI-II mono, so I’m thinking of using the Canon 7d. It should provide a wide field image, at high resolution and has live view for focusing. My thinking is that this should give me the least grief as a newb.

My question,…

Is there a software method for:

A) Separating RGB channels and realigning them to reduce chromatic abberation from the achromat.
B) Creating a virtual narrow band filter.

The purpose of this thought experiment is to test whether one can achieve a subset of the performance from a dedicated mono astro CCD while avoiding many hundreds if not thousands of $$ in cost.

Any thoughts, experience, advice or references gratefully accepted.

[fluffybunny]

Arg, that’s ugly. I guess it’s going to be pat downs for you from now on at the metal detector.

/Bonus, you might be famous in 10,000 years at an archealogical site for being the beneficiary of “barbaric medicine men”

[fluffybunny]

In other news, went and found the spot that sent me flying. Looked worse than I recalled actually. Took a few pics, but haven’t gotten them off the camera yet. Probably get them pulled off tonight. Basically they had a drainage problem due to a ridge of ground preventing runoff from the field to make it to the pond. So they installed 3 plastic pipes (3-4″ diameter or so) to get water from one side to the other. Instead of finishing off the dirt on either side nice and gradual like the rest of the ridge, it’s a hard edge cut. The wheel fell into this spot, wheel stopped, and as we all know, I didn’t.

I’ve done similar things, fortunately going pretty slowly. More of a “Hey look what I can do!” moment than a painful one. Were you moving pretty good?

[fluffybunny]

Maybe,…

[fluffybunny]

I’ve been spoiled by the 2Ti features…

Yeah, I have the same hesitation when using the old 20d vs the 7d.

[fluffybunny]

Thanks Els.

[fluffybunny]

Contest Linky

Please remember to wait for the boobies before posting! 😀

Got a little trigger happy, sorry.

[fluffybunny]

Hey Els,

Please to envotinate my first one, apparently being off for a couple of months made me stupid.

Thanks

[fluffybunny]

Most excellent ennui,.. it is amazing how far a few gentle words can take you vs the in your face ranting some people resort to.

[fluffybunny]

Yeah, I’m finding this a lot more challenging than I anticipated. I had some ideas but needed models for them to work. I went forth for the first time since mid July and got three last Sunday. Yay! I’m making photographs again!

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