GStar-EXC first impressions

[amoeba]

A shiny new GStar-Ex arrived for me yesterday, and the sky also stayed clear for the evening! I dragged a 54cm TV out the back, setup the scope, gave it a rough alignment then phoned some family over. The last few weekends i have been showing them around the sky, they are very interested but lacked basic observing skill and generally did not want to hang around in the cold waiting for dark adaption. I had been hoping the GStar-Ex would help me show them some of the deeper space objects we love to gaze at.

Well, the GStar-Ex preformed wonderfully! Being able to bring objects up on screen kept them outside for hours. (which was no small feat given how cold it has been last few days). My Father took a couple shots of the T.V screen with his camera, i have attached the images for people to see what the live view can achieve, keep in mind the T.V sync shows lines in the images which are not apparent when viewing live.

I’m looking forward to trying my hand at some more serious imaging with the cam.

[matt]

Not bad:)

Did you have the gain or brightness (whatever controls there are in GStar) cranked all the way up for the sake of showing the images on the screen?

They look a little burnt out, but very exciting to see that sort of stuff in real time on the TV screen.

Thanks for sharing that.

[iceman]

That's amazing for snapshots of a TV!

That g-star is a great performer.

[ballaratdragons]

Good Stuff! :thumbsup:

Just think, is was only a few years back that no-one ever imagined that this is possible. It was NASA's realm. And here we are doing in or own back yards.

[amoeba]

Yeah, I probably did have it too high. I cranked it up to show some nebulosity and forgot to adjusted it down again. lol

[duncan]

G'Day all,
Hey Mick thanks for all that ammunition!!
Thats just what i needed to convince " She who must be obeyed " that that is what i need! LOL.:rofl: Great to see and fingers crossed it wont be to long now.
Cheers,
Duncan:thumbsup:

[avandonk]

Yep they are a wonderful little device. I have two, one for a real time finder and one for guiding. I wish I had three!
I bring in the video signal from the guider and finder to a nice warm room inside and can see in real time what is going on out side on a monitor or the computer screen. I just use standard audio RCA cable seems to work just fine for casual viewing.

Bert