Quote:
Originally Posted by jase
Where's the data from this instrument Theo? You can only go visual for so long, given this is after all an imaging rig. Wack a fat internet pipe into it, define a rate per hour and provide me with your BSB and Account# for some online time. Lets see what it can do...
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Well, its been an uphill battle lately.
Just as i completed setting up the telescope, we of course had the sad event of the fires. This caused 2 problems for me.
the first is the skies were all smoke infested and visability was poor at best.
Add to that, im contracted for a company that maintains the Broadcasting networks like ABC and SBS radio and TV.
So when we lost Marysville and Mt Tassie (near Tralagon) sites, there was a heap of work to be done to restore all services.
Then once this slowly cleared, i started to get into imaging.
I had some teething problems with the guiding, as i was used to using a OAG, so now that i have the guide scope, i thought i'd try and use it.
Oh man, i had troubles with it, always produced egg stars or slightly worse.
I figured it must have been the difference in focal lengths of the two and the inability for the guide scope to be able to detect the fine movement at 500mm focal length as apposed to the 3500mm focal length of the CDK.
So i mounted a 150mm f12 Mak on its back, but everything was too dark and hard to find a guide star. Man, what else i thought, but while talking to a customer of mine and a IIS regular, he told me he's using a similar difference in focal lengths, but he was getting nice round stars.
I first thought he was a little daft, but he seemed to be confident about what he was saying. Then when comparing his settings on PHD, i found the cause of my problems.
Because my previous imaging was done at a much lower focal length, i adjusted the step size accordingly (700ms), and as you can already imagine, its way way too much for the higher focal length im now using. So i adjusted it to 100ms, and bingo.
So technically i have just started to take images.
I just took some raw shots of NGC 2613 and have yet to do any processing.
Of course, now its overcast.
Theo.
