I had an opportunity at Astrofest this year to buy a cooled and spectrum enhanced 40D and have now had a night of clear skies and good seeing to try it out. The objects chosen are the Helix (NGC7293) and the Pinwheel (M33). Each object was taken with a plain-jane Bintel 8" newt and is a stack of 12x5 minute subs at an image scale of 1.17 asp. The cooler dropped the sensor to Delta minus 18 or 19 and since ambient sat around 8-10C most of the night, the result was fairly close to minus 9 or 10. Not too shoddy really. A bit more blue-response might have been nice - especially in the M33 shots. But overall, and for first outings, I thought these were fairly promising.
Thanks guys. I grabbed the 40D to go with the un-modd'd one I have with a view to using both as part of a minimalist travelling rig for use in grey nomad journeys I'm planning. Good tripods and lenses, a Polrie and full esky. Bliss.
I've been inspired to have a crack at nightscapes and time-lapse stuff by some of th great images in IIS. Hope the dog is not too old to learn.
Houghy, I reckon the power spikes we were seeing in our orner of the field could not have been good fr our electronics. Hope your cams are repairable.
