Vlacq, Rosenberger, Steinheil, Watt & Janssen

[cybereye (Mario)]

Hi everyone!

Well after my trials and tribulations with M11 and M20 I thought I'd post a picture of part of my light pollution problem.

After imaging M11 & M20, I attached the QHY5 to the main scope (8" Newt F/6) and took an AVI of the Moon. Attached is the resultant image after stacking in Registax. This is a stack of the best 30 frames and I've also done a little processing to sharpen things up. Focus was tough as I was looking at the laptop some 2 metres away while I focused the scope.

Anyway, it's cloudy again in Brisbane and the forecast is not good for the next 5 days or so, so this is it for my contributions until I've got something new (and decent) to show!

Cheers,
Mario

[NorthernLight (Max)]

Hi Mario,

that doesn´t look too bad. I´ve noticed some vertical lines on the left side of the image, is that read out noice?
After a unsuccesful attempt to use my webcam the other night I was wondering if my Orion SSAG could do for that kind of stuff. It is the same cam as your qhy5 but being a CMOS I was wondering what it could do.
Apart from the hardly visible lines - convincing!
Did you shoot at prime or with a barlow?

I don´t know what it is with the weather. From memory it seems that last year was much easier.

Cheers!

[midnight (Darrin)]

Mario, I'm getting even more interested in that QHY5 after seeing your image. I have a Neximage and its good for intro stuff and that's about it so I'm interested in the QHY5.

You've got to be happy with that as looks quite good.

I'd love to see the same thing with a barlow though to see if you can get in closer. Bugger about the weather - I'm actually from Brisbane but over here in the west on construction lapping up the cold dark skies here (and no rain for weeks which is unusual for WA as it is a mediterranean type climate)

I must say I am not looking forward to moving back home next year with the Brissy weather .

I found when I did the moon, the focus didn't matter that much as there is so much turbulance visible, the focus was constantly changeing. Omaroo (Chris) suggested an aperture mask. I stopped my 8" newt down to a 2" aperture and bugger me did this help improve things quite a bit (focus and depth of field).

Good luck and I hope you try a barlow with it as I would love to see that - I actually like spending a lot of time on the moon - it's so rich in features and a great backup subject in dodgey weather irrespective of light pollution.

Cheers,
Darrin...

[cybereye (Mario)]

Max, The vertical lines are, I believe, from when I was stacking. The Moon was moving through the field of view relatively quickly so the fold (what we call the number of "stacks" in the seismic processing industry) is lower at the edges than in the centre. The lines were worse in the original stack where the fold was quite low but the old cropping tool fixed that!

As I understand it, the Orion SSAG and the QHY5 are basically the same camera. I use the QHY5 utility QGVideo to capture the images. It's available as a free download from www.astrosoft.be but I don't know if it would work for the Orion.

Darrin, the picture was at prime only. It was a quick "before I pack up" choice to shoot the Moon and I didn't give the barlow a thought. The changing of the apeture is a great suggestion because I really had to gain down the image so there's plenty of light anyway!!! As for the QHY5, I bought it primarily as a guider but have been very pleased with what else I've been able to use it for. I bought it from Peter Tan in Hong Kong for AUD$250. You then download all the drivers, etc from either www.qhyccd.com or www.astrosoft.be. I believe the drivers may be slightly better from the astrosoft site.

Thanks for the thoughts on the Moon. I've got to head out to a mine site a couple of 100kms south of Moomba, SA, in about a month's time so I'm taking the DSLR and hoping for nice dark skies!!

Cheers,
Mario