Galaxies from Sculptor - Page 2

RB (Andrew) · #21 03-10-2005, 10:40 PM

Fantastic work Paul.
Welcome to the forum and keep up the great work.

gaa_ian (Ian) · #22 03-10-2005, 11:11 PM

Welcome Paul

Great shot they are indeed

cometcatcher (Kevin) · #23 03-10-2005, 11:48 PM

Beautiful shots Paul.

I see you are also a fellow Samson mount user.

Still saving for a digital SLR here. Your unmodified 300D shots show that even a basic DSLR can be highly effective.

Keep on shooting and sharing the pics here.

tornado33 · #24 04-10-2005, 02:29 PM

Hey that makes 3 of us using the good ol Sampson mount

I too use Paul's Star Atlas Pro, brilliant software for finding the "faint fuzzies"
Scott

h0ughy (David) · #25 04-10-2005, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tornado33

Hey that makes 3 of us using the good ol Sampson mount

I too use Paul's Star Atlas Pro, brilliant software for finding the "faint fuzzies"
Scott

yes and they are faint

. I think Paul writes the software for you to find in some photo.

Congratulations Paul for signing up. We are all normal

here (those from the hunter region that is)

Is is true that you and scott were separated at birth

and are identical twins

?

PhotonCollector (Paul) · #26 04-10-2005, 09:09 PM

The samson mount handles the 12-inch OTA just fine, no it doesnt rock or move. The RA and DEC axis both are 32mm? diameter stainless - meaning it's a pretty strong mount. Even when viewing planets at high power the amount of vibration is so minimal I think it would please anyone. Balancing is the most important issue.

PhotonCollector (Paul) · #27 04-10-2005, 09:12 PM

Thanks Everyone for such a warm welcome.

PhotonCollector (Paul) · #28 04-10-2005, 09:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by h0ughy

yes and they are faint

. I think Paul writes the software for you to find in some photo.

Congratulations Paul for signing up. We are all normal

here (those from the hunter region that is)

Is is true that you and scott were separated at birth

and are identical twins

?

Its a strange story. It was about 20 years ago I was introduced to a Scott,
later I find out we are born on the same day, we both are astrophotographers, and we both have samson mounts with AOS telescopes. We both have Canon EOS cameras. It's very weird really. I think he's some type of cosmic twin.

PhotonCollector (Paul) · #29 04-10-2005, 09:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fringe_dweller

Paul - and i know that name from years ago

great site and articles btw your article "100 Brightest Galaxies for Southern Observers" fits right in with some discussions happening at the mo

Kearn

It's nice to know someone is putting that article to use. One day I plan to revise the list.

h0ughy (David) · #30 04-10-2005, 09:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhotonCollector

Its a strange story. It was about 20 years ago I was introduced to a Scott,
later I find out we are born on the same day, we both are astrophotographers, and we both have samson mounts with AOS telescopes. We both have Canon EOS cameras. It's very weird really. I think he's some type of cosmic twin.

I can hear the music playing now (twighlight zone)

hey NBN had one of my images on the weather last night, or so i was told by Scott!

PhotonCollector (Paul) · #31 04-10-2005, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chrissyo

Welcome to the greatest place on earth

Nice pictures! Also, I like your terrestrial from your site

Those sure are some impressive fish =D

Yeah thanks! Those pics of the fish were taken at Seaworld through a glass containment wall.

PhotonCollector (Paul) · #32 04-10-2005, 09:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iceman

Welcome Paul, nice introduction with some fantastic galaxy shots.

Have you got a shot of NGC55? It's one i've only recently discovered and I like it a lot!

There's an image I did with my 8-inch 'scope here http://www.skylab.com.au/pmsa/ngc55.html

PhotonCollector (Paul) · #33 04-10-2005, 09:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lxbruce

Hi Paul

I'm only very new here myself and from the Maitland area. Nice site and by the way I've been using Star Atlas Pro for a couple of years now and its great.
Bruce

Hi Bruce, I remember you. Good to hear you like the software.

PhotonCollector (Paul) · #34 04-10-2005, 09:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tornado33

Howdy Paul and welcome.
Everyone, Paul and I have the same make of equatorial mount, and we both hand guide our images

Also, we both share the same birthday

We have both been bitten by the DSLR imaging bug as well!
Gee theres a lot of imaging in Sculptor going on of late by Ice in space members

Scott

Hi Scott, I finally made myself find the time to join IIS. Mike Salway also recently invited me to join too, so here I am.

Sculptor is such a wonderful southern constellation, with plenty to offer in terms of large galaxies. Of couse there is N247 too in Cetus. There is a difficulty with most of the Sculptor galaxies though, and that is there surface brightnesses. Most of them are not much brighter than the sky background, so they are not easy to catch! N253 is the brightest of course, it has a surface brightness (sb) of 21.3 but N300 is much fainter with a sb of 22.9 ( about 1.6x fainter !).

xelasnave · #35 04-10-2005, 11:20 PM

Fantastic captures and work up Paul. Newcastle must becoming the astrophoto centre of Australia.. what is it something the water?. Welcome welcome and thank you for sharing your magnificent photographs with us here
alex

xelasnave · #36 04-10-2005, 11:37 PM

Had a look at your site, love the set up.. I have the same bintel 12 inch and long for the day I can mount it with my two current guide scopes. I like where the drive motor is placed for RA that seems sensible and I dont know why others dont follow this design. I thought that there was a lot of light bouncing around in those tubes the thing that surprised me with the 300mm was the relatively poor contrast. I use a "light tube" extention on my scopes. A tube in the case of the 6 inch scope it is a tube 8 inches in diameter about 2.5 feet long with 8 baffles, this goes as an extention to the scope and dramatically improves contrast for me at my site. I came up with the idea to eliminate stray star light getting into the tube. I also noticed the focuser will not travell in far enough for fotos.. It will if you use a 3x barlow but on a dob mount only Moon shots are achievable. Great site great work great equipment.
alex

PhotonCollector (Paul) · #37 05-10-2005, 02:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Had a look at your site, love the set up.. I have the same bintel 12 inch and long for the day I can mount it with my two current guide scopes. I like where the drive motor is placed for RA that seems sensible and I dont know why others dont follow this design. I thought that there was a lot of light bouncing around in those tubes the thing that surprised me with the 300mm was the relatively poor contrast. I use a "light tube" extention on my scopes. A tube in the case of the 6 inch scope it is a tube 8 inches in diameter about 2.5 feet long with 8 baffles, this goes as an extention to the scope and dramatically improves contrast for me at my site. I came up with the idea to eliminate stray star light getting into the tube. I also noticed the focuser will not travell in far enough for fotos.. It will if you use a 3x barlow but on a dob mount only Moon shots are achievable. Great site great work great equipment.
alex

Yes, everything you say is correct, the OTA off the shelf does not have good contrast. I corrected this by installing 6 light baffles on the inside of the OTA. If you look at the 'scope here http://www.skylab.com.au/pmsa/equip.html you will notice that you can see the first light baffle infront of the secondary spider vanes. The contrast improvement was simply astonishing after installing the baffles.

Yes, the OTA will not come to focus, that's correct! What I had to do is move the optics 41.5mm closer together to put the new focus on the ccd plane such that the focuser was mid-position. It took a while to work out that 41.5mm was the number.

The most simple method to move the optics closer together was to shorten the tube length. Another mirror mount may have did the job, but the mirror mount that comes with the OTA is very good and well worth keeping.

So now I have focus at the camera sensor plane, but I can not use the 'scope visually as the eyepieces no longer reach focus. I need to find myself a 2-inch extension barrel to extend the eyepiece focus, but the 'scope is always setup for imaging so this doesnt bother me.

PhotonCollector (Paul) · #38 05-10-2005, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Fantastic captures and work up Paul. Newcastle must becoming the astrophoto centre of Australia.. what is it something the water?. Welcome welcome and thank you for sharing your magnificent photographs with us here
alex

There's a bug in the water up here called the "ASTROBUG". Apparently its been in the Hunter Valley water supply for some time.

ving (David) · #39 05-10-2005, 02:56 PM

hi to both paul and bruce!

welcome to you both
great images paul

xelasnave · #40 05-10-2005, 06:46 PM

One more question Paul if I may? Did you use the opportunity of installing baffles to add strenght to the tube? Thinking about mounting mine on an equatorial mount (sortta building a fork mount for it) but it occured to me that given the lenght of the tube it may flex.. have you encountered such a problem or taken action to head that one off?? and if you can try my "light tube extention approach.. doesnot have to be a baffled tube (much better) but you will appreciate the improvement with a flat black cardboard tube, tape a wire ring on the outside to give it support.. thanks for your informative reply
alex