Saturn 9th-10th March 2007

[netwolf]

Hi All,

Seeing looked good to me, later when I was about the pack up I noticed I could see the Crux from my backyard and the polar triangle easily. I am guessing the seeing was goo from this.

Well a fun night with the LX90, left the dew shield of and I did not note any dew . I think perhaps I was misinterpretation the reflections of the red light torch as dew or mist previously.

I think I saw a satelite tiny dot moving fast in the FOV, while aligning trying to Align on Alderban (about 9pm) using 25mm EP.

As to Saturn, spend a lot of time trying to focus it just right and unfortunately it seems I am still not having much luck. I used Qfocus focusing tool on Saturn until I got a Imax value averaging the highest value it would goto. Anyway I think my focus is still off I will let you guys be the judge.

Tried to use the 5x barlow but I really had to push gain, gamma and brightness to get an image on the screen. I found it quiet difficult to focus at this magnification due to image shift. The Image would move so much that I had to realign and sync every time to start capturing. I had to use PPM to center the images as Registax could not align correctly on any features, given the very low brightness and large amounts of noise.

I think in need to get a 1.25" 2x and possibly a 3x barlow. Also need to do something about my focusing issues. Image shift is an issue at higher magnifications. Is there a quickfix to the meade focuser? That I could use for fine adjustments without causing shift.

All captures were done at 5fps.


Regards

[want a be]

Great pics,what type of camera or ccd did you use? I got my first afocal pic of Saturn tonite with my 1.3 mega pixel digital camera,just by holding it to the eye piece with my 8" CPC. Almost ashamed to show them now that I seen your great shots....

[beren]

:thumbsup: great going mate .......apart from a crayford focuser like a Williams optics SCT type to help with the focus maybe somthing like this might make things a little easier http://www.scopestuff.com/ss_foc1.htm

[netwolf]

Using a Celestron Neximage borrowed from a good friend.

want a be, go ahead and post it mate its the effort that counts. And I read a very good post on CN about newbies getting frustrated by mistakes and thinking technology will solve it. Tech will not help without skill and skill comes with practice and effort. When I had a dob, it was a back breaking effort to track anything and still it was worth it. But look at Mike he spent the same time I spent searching for tech improving his technique and his images show his effort. My mistake was to get to into the technology and not enough time at the EP. Yesterday I got a peak at the Ghost of Jupiter and thought wow, it was barely visiable to my naked eye just coming in and out of focus. And I thought man I should have had my dob setup. And now look at me in my search for the ultimate imaging setup I have the right scope but my skill level has not caught up to it. Others have produced far better with far less. So take it from me what ever scope you have use it, and post what ever effort you made. The pat on the back you get from you pears goes a long way to make you want to pursue this hobby further. I am still learning.

beren thanks I was looking at The crayford focusers but am concerned about clearance between the OTA and fork arms. Can a crayford be installed after a diagonal to place it at an angle?


Regards