Robin, I thought your were a CCDInspector-sceptic? Those pics seem to tell the story though.
I threatened to post a few of the images from the 20th. Only one worth the name was M31. Here it is.
Peter
Robin, I thought your were a CCDInspector-sceptic? Those pics seem to tell the story though.
I threatened to post a few of the images from the 20th. Only one worth the name was M31. Here it is.
Peter
Nice going Peter - plenty of detail coming out there!
Well folks, you won't recognise my Obs. Until this morning, there wasn't a mount or scope in it - just 2 empty piers. But, since nature and my credit card abhor a vacuum, that situation has changed. One pier now has a 12 1/2 inch f/20 Dall Kirkham on a professional mount that could hold Jessie the elephant - courtesy of James Buckley (Maidenwell Obs). It's going to be my dedicated visual scope for doing lunar and planetary visuals and video. James says that one nights of good seeing, I can push it as high as 100 mags per inch of aperture. Can you imagine Saturn at x1200. Wahoo!!
That'll keep me from going bananas while I wait for the Titan to turn up in September. And then .... well, that's months away.
Peter
So long as you plug it into the $4K scope you dragged up last time
Yes pete, ccdinspecter gives me different results depending on where the camera is pointing but if you expose long enough it seems to settle down. I see you're Kingaroy buddy has a bucket load more stuff up on Astro Buy/Sell. Don;t get tempted now.
That's rich!! Not only did you produce some first-rate widefields but I seem to remember that there was a camara shop out on that table with more lenses that Ted's End-of-Year Half-Price Sale just a splash of Takahashi here and there. Mere DSLR my #$@%
... I see you're Kingaroy buddy has a bucket load more stuff up on Astro Buy/Sell. Don;t get tempted now.
He sure does. He's got one of those snazzy Lumemera Skynyx 2-2M CCDs going for 2K. Not a bad cam for planetary/lunar stuff. But I've already blown the budget for 2010 and 2011 so I'll have to settle for what I've got for a bit.
Peter.
I seem to remember that there was a camara shop out on that table with more lenses that Ted's End-of-Year Half-Price Sale just a splash of Takahashi here and there.
Peter.
So much for my closet gearhead status. I've been outed
Still, a 12.5 incher is a lot more impressive than a few camera lenses! Looking forward to a squizz at it and through it...
It's certainly going to be interesting. I got the OTA assembly mounted today. It took 2 of us to lift it onto the cradle. It's a big beast. But after a bit of tightening and tweaking, it was time to actually take a peek through it. Turned it onto a telecom tower up on top of the D'Aguilar range about 5 km away and at x600 it was still crisp and clean and the tower filled the ep entirely. At x1000 I had an individual antenna dish dominating the ep and the detail was still crisp and clean. This big boy is going to give us some serious knee-trembling moments with lunar and planetary stuff. Wahoo!! So now it's raining and forecast to continue for the next week. Rats!
Peter
I think Peter has been watching too many of the Sat night James Bond movies lately - its really a secret weapon for world domination he's installing - just needs the high power "LASER" installed next to it to become fully operation
- its really a secret weapon for world domination he's installing ....
darn right. And you never know when it's going to be pointing your way. You know those lights in Brisbane that ruin the night sky out here - well, now we have the weapon to deal with it. MMaaaaHaaaaa!!
Obergruppenfurher Peter.
I know very little about its provenance apart from the fact it was said to have been manufactured in Cairns. It's carrying an easy 60+kg and doesn't blink. The axes are a good 32mm and maybe more (haven't measured yet). The drive is RA only with the usual nudge controls in both RA and Dec. The gears are a precision set of 359 teeth (perfect for siderial tracking) and as long as it is well aligned on it's pier, the lack of a dec drive is a minor issue at best. Besies, it's going to be a visual scope primarily so controlling a bit of drift is no biggie.
I'm hoping to throw a few Naglers at it on Saturday night. That'll be the test.
Peter
Well, the weather at this point (5 days out) says wet Friday, fine Saturday. Who knows? The good news is that we now have one completed telescope pad down and concreted in with SCP aligning channel and an E-W channel as well for your back legs. As long as your legs are equally extended, you will fall into very close to SCP alignment just by plonking the scope down. Also, the tripod should be pretty well dead horizontal too.
The pads are sized to take an EQ6 at full extension of 1500mm although I expect most imagers would set the scope a bit lower and the legs not so widely spread.
The second pad is dug, framed and sleel'd up, SCP alignment points set and ready for concrete next Saturday but it won't be usable of course for a few days at least.
Let me know if you're thinking of coming out please so I can plan ahead.
cheers
Peter.
