I'm using a little ole Sirius EQ-G by Orion. However, I had it tuned by Jason at Astrotroniks. That combined with the amazing optics provided by Vic Maris and imaging gets much easier (assuming sky conditions cooperate!).
I know I've been absent for a loooonnnggg time. Sorry about that folks. No excuses, plenty of reasons. Anyway, here's my latest image made with my Orion Starshoot Deep Space Imager III, Chroma Technology filters and a wonderful Stellarvue 80mm refractor (first one of a new line from Vic!).
Hope you all like it and as usual, any/all comments are most welcome!
I hope to add a whole bunch of data over the next few days.
I did exactly as Dr. Clay recommends here for several years before I built my observatory and never ever had a problem in the field. I could run my scope (LX90) all night on one of those beaut's, charge it the next day and be ready to go again.
Hi old friends! Here's one I made last night and this morning before the Nor'easter shows up on my doorstep later tonight. If I get a chance, I'd like to add a ton more data to it.
Anybody else see an enormous meteor about 7:25 tonight? I was setting up for an imaging session and stepped out of the observatory only to see an amazingly bright comment streak across the Northern sky. It came from the general area of Perseus and headed West beneath Polaris. It left the longest trail I've ever seen before it broke up and continued across before it disappeared behind some trees as it started to finally fade.
Absolutely the most impressive one I've ever seen!
I made this one with an ATIK 314+ camera I have on loan. It really is a very nice camera. I didn't even have to use dark frames to control noise. There just doesn't seem to be enough there to bother with.
The way to read my scribbles is that there was a total of 50' of exposure in 5' increments for Luminance, Red and Blue channels and 40' of exposure for the Green channel.
It's bee a very long time since I posted here, so I figured I'd share one of my "recent" images with you all. It's a very small galaxy for my setup, but I think it came out okay anyway. It's M106 through an 80mm refractor, so the image scale is pretty small.
Cheers chaps! I didn't use any filters for this sketch, I can pick out the low contrast markings on Venus fairly easily.
You've either got very, very dark skies or your eyes are younger and more receptive than ours. I'm going to go with better skies, so that I don't feel older than I already do.
Congratulations on your decision to move forward. I know you spent a lot of time and energy choosing. I've seen several of these in action and they are very nicely made and provide excellent views.
Dude, that is a long time without seeing the stars! If you are using a standard wedge, then you have to point the single leg south. If you are using one of Meade's upgrades (Super or Ultra Wedge) then you point the single leg North. It has nothing to do with stability. It is all about how the azimuth adjustments are made.
Regarding your steadiness, that's because you are using the standard wedge. You can do some things to make it steadier, but you will never get it to the same level as either of Meade's replacement wedges. I have both and there is no comparison.
I thought I'd drop in and let everyone know what I've been up to this summer. As some of you know, I've been spending quite a bit of my astronomy time working on things for Astronomy Technology Today. If you're a subscriber you can find all issues online at http://www.astronomytechnologytoday.com/. If you're not a subscriber, you might want to consider subscribing. I gain nothing from your subscription (I don't even get payed for writing, it's all volunteer). However, there are some great articles in there as well as some useful tips for everyday use. Plus it's very inexpensive.
I have been working with some equipment from Orion for the past several months. I have one of their Sirius mounts, a 6" Newtonian that has been optimized for imaging, an Orion StarShoot II monochrome imager, an Orion StarShoot Auto Guider and an Orion short tube 80 refractor (as a guide scope). This package has been a blast to use, when I haven't been stumbling over pilot error issues. I've written one article for ATT, which was the cover article for August, and will be submitting another based on the mount.
I've written about FarPoint's collimation tools, how to build your own observing chair, all of Meade's imagers through the DSI II (I really want one of their latest imagers to play with) and a Rigel spectroscope. So even though we haven't had great weather in New England (just ask Ted), I've been able to keep somewhat busy.
My other passion, black and white photography, has consumed all my remaining free time. For a very small sample of my work in that area visit my photography web page at http://webpages.charter.net/dsnay/photography/ .
It's been too long since I've been here on arksky.org, but .....
I just returned a family camping trip in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The best skies I've seen all year and I had zero astronomy equipment other than my two tired old eyes. I took the family up to a local dam on the night of the peak and we layed in the back of the truck for an hour or so. It was fabulous! We saw many meteors (at least 1 per minute) and several very bright ones. I'm not sure which I enjoyed more, the meteors or the oohs and aahs of the people I dragged out of bed....
This was probably one of my best nights of astronomy in a VERY long time!
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