Here are a few more pics of the ASA gear. Its the ASA DDM 60 and 85. Spoke with Egor, the ASA Chief. It is clear that they have spent quite some time listening to complaints and determined ways to address them. Their mounts will soon be tested by some rental scope providers which is probably one of the most demanding environments where failure costs money.
First two are of the 60, the remain three are of the 85.
Nice stuff, but way out of the price ability of the average person...you should see the looks on the guys faces @ work when I drop prices on the gear to some of them...it isn't pretty!
Dave
That's why they call it the "Advanced Imaging Conference", not the beginner, cheapskate or intermediate imaging conference.
Actually, its not as advanced as people think. There are however people pushing the envelope. Craig Stark did a workshop on autoguiding which I heard was good. I didn't attend...its not that I don't see autoguiding as important, but the topic is trivial IMO. He also did a presentation on the basics of imaging with low end gear.
No. The DDM160 was not present. They only introduced this into their line up in Sept. Its not officially available as yet. From a sales manager so non techo, apparently there's problems with magnet alignment in which they're addressing. Mechanics related to the direct drive system. Translation of course could be all wrong with these Austrian folks, so I wouldn't take my word for it.
Thanks for sharing Jase. Very cool videos. I like the quote on El Capitan mount. Get a chair on top, a pair of binoculars and it will take you for a sky tour. What a beast!
Hi Jase, Hows the imaging been going?
Thanks for the links. Now we have broadband I shall give it a real good looking over!
Maybe someone should organize something like that over here
I would be very interested!
cheers Gary
Hi Gary,
Great to see you back into imaging and getting up to speed. Imaging output has been slow. I agree, it would be good to have such an event in AU (minus vendors as I doubt its worth their effort to come out here). Numbers are against us compared to what they draw in the US for AIC (350+ hardcore imagers), but still a possibility.
Thanks, heaps. I thoroughly enjoyed looking through the photos of the event.
I have to say, your widefield of the Milky Way is one of the finest images I have ever seen, and, shone head and shoulders above everyone elses in that little Flash slideshow presentation.
Make sure you book your tickets for 2010. It will be another excellent conference.
Thanks for the links Jase. Downloaded the whole lot this morning. Already went through Tom Davis' tutorials. Very clever processing indeed. I like it, but for the "asteroids" first three slides.
Ive heard quite the opposite ..., anyway, will be interesting to see how that goes.
It's a known fact Fred, ASA's and Moorook don't mix. Something to do with the high mineral content in the soil I believe. Will see how NMSkies get on. Anyway, don't like ASA's? Big deal, there are plenty of alternatives on the market nowadays such as the Orion Optics AG series - http://www.orionoptics.co.uk/AG/agrange.html
... So in short, mega data doesn't equate to a noiseless image, there comes a point of diminishing returns.
Jase...I've often thought this....and have come to the conclusion data sets need doubling before you see, not so much a noise improvement, but a marked S/N improvement. i.e 2:4:8:16:32:64 hours of exposure.
It would be interesting to see a more rigourous analysis.
A bit moot as right now I'd settle for imaging with any camera....and no more STX delays.....sigh...