PDA

View Full Version here: : imaging through a $200 goto system


Shiraz
21-09-2010, 05:07 PM
Just got home after spending 5 weeks with family in Texas. The sky was very stable over there, but the only scope available was one we bought for the grandkids a couple of years ago for US$200 at COSTCO - a Meade 90mm refractor on a DS2000 tracking altaz mount with 497 goto handset and a few ordinary EPs. I had put a short 2x Barlow and my trusty old QHY5c super webcam in the luggage (doesn’t everyone..), so we had a system. And it all worked fine. The Meade mount was quick and easy to set up and it tracked well if there was no wind to cause wobbles, easily holding a planet in the centre of the Barlowed QHY5. The OTA turned out to be optically quite good as well, producing nice clean diffraction patterns on stars.

Attached are a few images, showing that if the air is stable, you can get fairly interesting solar system images from a really bottom end system. The colour balance on Jupiter is a bit odd - always has been from the QHY5 - and the Jupiter and Venus images needed super res processing to extract maximum detail (I agree that I overdid the processing), so there is some fixed pattern noise. The QHY5 has 1.3 Mpixels, so the lunar image is quite wide field - and the OTA did a good job all the way to the edges. Everything ultimately worked pretty well - I would not have been surprised to find that I was wasting my time, but it turned out that solar system imaging with this class of scope can be fun if expectations are realistic.

multiweb
21-09-2010, 05:11 PM
:eyepop: That's hot! I want one :lol: :thumbsup:

DavidU
21-09-2010, 05:28 PM
A Meade 90mm achro !:eyepop::thumbsup:

Alchemy
21-09-2010, 06:13 PM
That's done it, now everyone will want one. Hehe

jjjnettie
21-09-2010, 09:23 PM
Flipping fabulous!
Keep pushing that envelope Ray, it's amazing what can be done with entry level gear.
BTW, Michael Covington posted an image of Jupiter last night that is on par with yours, and his was taken through an 8" scope. So you can give yourself a well deserved pat on the back.

michaellxv
21-09-2010, 11:09 PM
You mean I'm not completely mad and there is hope for me yet.

jjjnettie
21-09-2010, 11:15 PM
Look how far we amateurs have come over the past 30 years. We're producing images that the professionals were only dreaming of.

ballaratdragons
21-09-2010, 11:19 PM
So Jeanette, you are saying that Michaels image was so bad that it looks like it took it through a 90mm Achro, not an 8" Dob :D

:rofl:

jjjnettie
21-09-2010, 11:25 PM
Not at all. LOL
I'm saying Ray's is as good as one taken through an 8".

Shiraz
22-09-2010, 01:35 AM
thanks for the comments folks - I was also slightly amazed at what this gear could do.



thanks Jeanette, the Jupiter images are also quite similar to many that I have taken with my own 8 inch scope - not quite sure what that means.