M42 - 10th Nov 2007

[middy]

Last night was mostly cloud free. It was a case of dodge the clouds occasionally and then it would clear up again until the next bank of clouds rolled over.

Subject: M42 in Orion
Location: Brisbane Qld
Date: 10th Nov 2007
Exposure: 12 x 30 sec, 8 x 22 sec, 8 x 15 sec
Camera: DSI Pro
Tracking: Barndoor mount
Focal Length: 300 mm (Sigma 70 - 300mm)
Processing: Stacked in Iris, levels, curves and layer masking in Photoshop.

All comments/suggestions welcome.

[[1ponders]]

Not too shabby at all Andrew. :thumbsup: Very nice in fact. It's not easy focusing an SLR lens on a DSI and you've done a great job of it.

[Ric]

Very nice Andrew, you've captured the core very nicely.

Cheers

[Garyh]

A great result for a barndoor tracker and DSI :thumbsup:
cheers Gary

[dcalleja]

OK I'll bite - whats a barndoor mount?

[middy]

In a nutshell it is two planks of wood hinged at one end and a bolt at the other end which, when turned, rotates the top plank at the same rate the sky is turning, thus tracking the stars as they cross the sky. Here is a pic of mine.

[citivolus]

Thanks for the pic. I've been trying for years to visualise one of these.

Eric

[StarLane]

Nice image.
Amazing tracking device, very interesting. Any chance you can post the plans to make one of these??? :D

Cheers, Paul.

[middy]

Hi Paul,

I don't have the exact plans for mine. I loosely based it on the one at this site:

http://www.astunit.com/tonkinsastro/atm/projects/handscotch.htm

If you google the words 'barndoor', 'scotch' and 'mount' you will turn up plenty of references to these devices. :thumbsup:

[StarLane]

Thanks mate, much appreciated.