Schmidt Newtonian shots.

[asimov (John)]

Hi all.

Lester kindly lent me his 1980 5.5" F3.6 'comet catcher' for me to try out. It's doing an acceptable job. I think the scope has too much secondary offset & as such I can't quite get the collimation spot on by just tweeking the primary but it's close.

My tracking on the CG5 is not great but I'm getting there.

I realize these images have their problems; amp glow - noise - etc but when you consider I'm using a $200 long exposure modified 840K toucam, there not bad either Everything has to be spot on to get an acceptable image with this setup. Theres no luck involved, one has to have the patience of an interstate truck driver & it demands a lot of trial & error on each object to find the right capture settings.

It's frustratingly great fun!

These were captured over several nights recently.

[iceman (Mike)]

They're VERY good for a ToUcam! Excellent work john.

[RB (Andrew)]

Oh wow John, these are great mate.
You've done an excellent job.

[ving (David)]

go asi!
you that man!

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Far out Asi. That's amazing You can really see where the images are just hovering at that point where they just want to snap into detail. Especially the M42 shot.

Care to share an example of some of your setting you used, say for the lagoon shot. I'm really interested to see what sort of magic is needed to go into a shot like that with a ToUcam

[Ric]

Great images, M42 is a beauty.

Top stuff

[asimov (John)]

Hey thanks guys

Paul, the settings for the Lagoon: (I use Desire to capture, & with the capture settings it refers back to the standard software Philips Vrecord)

Brightness 55%

Gamma 95%

Gain 15%

Maxed out on exposure of course ( 1/25th) @ 5FPS.

The Lagoon was the first shot I took after drift aligning, but not accurate enough so I had to stay under 30 second exposures to stop star trailing. Taken at 20 seconds each with about 20 captured.

The swan & M42 were captured at longer exposures & therefore different gain & gamma settings. From memory, 10% gain 70% gamma.

Desire has optional amp off/on time settings as well as others & one will have to experiment in this area extensively, finding the best settings for the webcam used, that took awhile to nut out but I got there in the end.

One of my major problems is having to move my mount out of the driveway each night I've finished, so I'm making a pier to fix that wee problem; I will be able to get the car out with at least 5" to spare each side I can then drift align to my hearts content to get it accurate enough to get up to 60-90 secs.

[Striker (Tony)]

Thats some terrific work for webcam asimov.

Well done

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Yeah, tell me about that in/out every night

It looks like you are taking darks (?) but what about flats? Also how are you subtracting the darks and processing the images? If they are avies are you using Registax or are you ppmcentering them and then combining the individual bmps?

This is really great work with the ToUcam Asi.

[asimov (John)]

Desire only allows BMP's. So yup, there all uncompressed BMP's shoved up the pipe. Usually just one dark taken straight after the imaging run. I tried stacking 1/2 dozen darks into a master but I found it to be no advantage. No flats. All done in registax for the dark sub & stacking.

Processing is done mainly in Registax, with some tweeking in Picture Publisher, neatimage, Hotpixels & astraimage.

[fringe_dweller]

is there anything you can't do with that webcam asi-terrific!? wait till ya get hold of a dslr
well met!

[TidaLpHasE]

Awsome asi, they are way better than any of my first pics with the 350d thats for sure, and with a webcam
What an effort

[asimov (John)]

Well, I can only hope I get better at this just by getting more precise with the equipment I'm using & brushing up on my 'technique'. If this is the best I can do I'm going to get dissapointed soon lol.

I'm calling this experience my apprenticeship until I can afford something like an SBig or a DSLR.

Thanks guys.

[asimov (John)]

Originally Posted by fringe_dweller

is there anything you can't do with that webcam asi-terrific!? wait till ya get hold of a dslr
well met!

Yes Kearn, I can't go longer than 65 seconds without the image turning into a whiteout from too much noise! Rest assured I'm working on that bit though

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Dang, nice work AsiDSO!

The annoying part about DSO's with a Toucam is that it always feels out of focus!!! I fiddle and I fiddle and focus never comes

I know why, it's just annoying.

[h0ughy (David)]

hey I must have missed this awesome shots Asimov!!!

[acropolite (Phil)]

Great work Asi, the best DSO's I've seen from a ToUcam.

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

gee's from a toucam??? those are fantastic.

[asimov (John)]

Thanks guys. It's low budget stuff but fun none the less

[Adrian-H]

AHHH THE TWOCAMS ARE TAKING OVER!!