Orion Neb using 20Da from Lostock

[Lester]

Great photo chaps. I have just learnt how to focus 20Da and guess what forcast is for 6 days rain and showers. So at least I can drawl over your astrophotos.

[RB (Andrew)]

Thanks Louie, John Asi and Phil. It was a real buzz taking this shot through Louie's equipment.
John and Phil I wish you guys were there too along with David_P and Ving, it would have capped off the perfect astrocamp.

Originally Posted by meade expert

Very nice Andrew...
Was it manually guided or auto guided ?

Joe it was just in tracking mode no guiding because we couldn't get the autoguiding to work properly.
It's good tracking for 2 minutes isn't it?

Lester the focus mode on the 20Da is simply awesome, what a great idea.
When I was using the standard 18-55mm lens to do wide field astro work, you could actually see the star going from fuzzy to a tight dot and back out to fuzzy and at the same time watched the chromatic aberration change colour around the star as you swing through the focus point, amazing stuff.
The 20Da is a great fully featured astro camera and also make a terrific daytime camera and you don't need to use any extra filters to compensate if you wish. Works almost exactly like the standard 20D.

Cheers all.

[davidpretorius]

Originally Posted by Rocket Boy

Thanks Louie, John Asi and Phil. It was a real buzz taking this shot through Louie's equipment.
John and Phil I wish you guys were there too along with David_P and Ving, it would have capped off the perfect astrocamp.

yes it would have been great, unfortunately you would not have had time to take this great shot, cos we would have been giggling and spamming eah other...

Daniel and I are going to give this a try in march with his 350d. So i am keen to compare to your 20da shot and houghys pentax (350 class)

[acropolite (Phil)]

Yeah would have been fantastic, hopefully we will get to Qld Astrofest this year as we have rellies there.

[videoguy]

Hi Andrew

I think that's a really nice picture...Was there a focal reduce used? It's like a prime focus f/4.5 photo of about 20 minutes exposure taken with 1000 ASA film!

I had a go at M42 also the other evening with an 80mm refractor - first time for me actually but with a 1/2 CCD chip could barely fit it on the frame at f7.5.
see: http://myastroshop.com.au/guides/swed80.asp

Steve

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by videoguy

Hi Andrew

I think that's a really nice picture...Was there a focal reduce used?
Steve

Thanks Steve, no I didn't use a reducer. It was imaged at f/7.5.
Thanks for the link, very interesting to see the Minatron images and image scale.
http://myastroshop.com.au/guides/swed80.asp

Cheers

[Lester]

G'day Rocket Boy,

Thanks for your comments reguarding focussing the 20Da. I have ordered a infra red cut out filter for daytime photos because ocassionally parts of the photo would show up excessively red. Had some trouble tracking filter down but one is supposed to arrive in about 3 weeks. I could not find any in Australia.

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by Lester

G'day Rocket Boy,

Thanks for your comments reguarding focussing the 20Da. I have ordered a infra red cut out filter for daytime photos because ocassionally parts of the photo would show up excessively red. Had some trouble tracking filter down but one is supposed to arrive in about 3 weeks. I could not find any in Australia.

Cheers Lester,

I'll have to have a closer look at my day time shots as I haven't used it that much for daytime. I know there's a slight colour cast, but doesn't worry me at all. Let me know how you go with the filter, I'd be very interested in your results.

[danielsun]

Great shots guys!!

And congrats on winning the argo rocket boy!!!!