Here is where I was 10 years ago.
Manual guiding no idea of processing http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=24967
Nine minutes manually guiding. Tuff. Didnot have I clue but I remember how hard guiding was.
Alex
Some of the names in the thread replies stirred up fond memories too. I remember the vast knowledge of Omaroo and the often fiery and always helpful contributions by Ken James (Ballaratdragons). Shame they left the forum!
Pretty darn good for manual guiding. Your hands must have been steady in those days. I can make out a few RA and Dec crosses on the brighter stars but heck they could be diffraction spikes.
Wow Alex, nine minutes hand guiding would seem like an eternity.
I remember standing next to my rig waiting for 6 minute exposures and that was auto guiding, time really goes slow.
Excellent work Alex.
That's a really interesting post Alex, especially the comments.
I think it would have been good to post just the pic as if it had been taken last night and compare comments getting back then to now.
I think I was the first advocate of short subs when I started to use deep sky stacker, I recall posting encouragement that using 30 sec subs anyone could do it.
The amp glow was so bad with the old canon 300d you would crop about15% from the right side, dark frames were rarely used by me, processing was do a twiddle with contrast and brightness, adjust colour and give it a sharpen up all in photoshop.
I am getting excited. I have decided to take the eq6 and the 8 inch up North and hopefully give it a go without manual guiding, and see if all I did years ago help now.
But reading my deep sky posts from 10 years ago certainly brought back memories both of how primative I was (well the game was generally as most were starting out) and the old faces who sadly are no longer here.
Alex
Thanks all.
And a decade ago many of us were just starting out even Mike was starting out because he only had 25 years experience back then.
But looking back through my old posts and photos I remember the huge effort, both thru ignorance and the quality of the gear.
And guiding you could hardly see the star in the illuminated reticle trying to balance it in the lit cross hair, after a while your head seemed to start to spin.
Hopefully I can ease back in and not put the axe into anything misbehaving.
Alex
Did the vibrations from the dinosaurs stomping about make guiding harder, Alex?
Back in the good 'ol days I built a barn door mount driven by a floppy drive stepper motor and attached my film camera to it (Olympus OM-2n.) It was fun but the images were mediocre at best. We're spoiled rotten with the technology that's available now
Good thread to read Alex,
For me 10 years ago was my SN discovery 2008fa in NGC6722 and basically the beginnings of BOSS which as of last Friday has a tally of 175 discoveries with Pat Pearl making his first discovery for the team in NGC2297 (AT2017ixh).
Here also are some names we don't see anymore. http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...light=sn2008fa
Alex, it is interesting to note that you used to use the reticle's cross hairs when guiding, whereas I used to defocus the guide star until it exactly filled
the inner circle in my reticle eyepiece, and found it easy[but tedious, of course] to keep the star centred.
raymo
Alex, it is interesting to note that you used to use the reticle's cross hairs when guiding, whereas I used to defocus the guide star until it exactly filled
the inner circle in my reticle eyepiece, and found it easy[but tedious, of course] to keep the star centred.
raymo
A decade ago I was just making my first few steps into the digital astro photography world, with a point and shoot camera through the eyepiece. One of my first attempts then was the 2006 transit of mercury. The digital era certainly has made astro photography fun again and much easier to get results than the old 35mm film.
A decade ago I was content sitting in a deck chair armed with a pair of 10 X 50 Bino's until I stumbled across an article by Barry Armistead which led me to here.
The journey has been wonderful.
Gregory.
For me the same. I made astrophotos by manual tracking of an 80mm scope as guidescope.
Just peering through the guide eyepiece for 10 minutes or more for ... one single frame.
I have just been reading some old astronomy magazines...one has an article by David (Houghey) on Duckerdang and inthe same mag prizes for the Marlin awards showing some memorable faces including Mike S for a wonderful Eagle Neb.
alex
