Niiiiiiice! They certainly look like what they're supposed to look like! =) You should take a trip out to some nice dark skies to fully test it!
Thanks Chrissyo for the comments.
I must thank Rumples Riot for his help and addition in the official Spam thread to his friend who set up an observatory in QLD. I went to the site to have a look and lo and behold his mate had a for sale area. So I checked that and i nearly fell off my perch, there was a second hand ST4 autoguider for sale. I have been after one of these for a few months. Hehehehe so i have just bought it. Thanks Paul . now when I get it I will be able to autoguide.
I was wondering what firmware version your using for your DS? I noticed on the Pentax site that from version 1.01 they have improved noise reduction.
If you've upgraded it have you noticed any difference?
Quote:
PENTAX *istDS FIRMWARE UPDATE VERSION 1.02
CHANGES Version 1.02:
* Contains everything from previous versions of the firmware.
* Support for SD cards larger than 1GB.
CHANGES Version 1.01:
* Extra-long exposure times, such as those used for astronomical photography, have been known to generate some green noise in an image when noise reduction is turned on. This phenomenon will only occur under specific shooting conditions (e.g. a starry night sky), and not in general use. Version 1.01 of the firmware will minimize this noise as much as possible for those who use the *istDS for this purpose.
It get's pretty exciting looking at what you have just imaged.
Keep it up.
Thanks Tony,
I am so impressed with this mount. it is absolutely amazing. I did a test before i took images last night. I did the polar aligning and I almost got it spot on. i thought well I will read up on drift aligning to get it right but i was distracted by the kids and the wife and left it for 2 hours whilest getting them to bed and bathed etc. I had it set on Formalhaut, it had not moved from where i had it. i jagged it! i had polar alignment!!!!!! not only that, I punched in a few objects on the keypad and it went straight to them. then I tried the objects i photographed. But I had severe light polution and where I set up I had some car headlights which were apparent in some shots.
the mount is smooth and has virtually no backlash. I am impressed with the work that Roger from BATSC did on the mount!!!! Well worth it
I was wondering what firmware version your using for your DS? I noticed on the Pentax site that from version 1.01 they have improved noise reduction.
If you've upgraded it have you noticed any difference?
No I am not aware of that! I have done 1.01 from 1. I will have to do that and see what the difference is?
Nice pics. hUffy. L.
ps. The prob. with the installed battery/ies can be overcome by using an external one & fitting a 'dummy' one in place of the original. PM for details if req'd. L.
H0ughy, I had a go at doing some processing of your images. I stacked three of the M42 and did some processing on the stack. Still a little noisy but managed to get a little more out of the shot. A stack of 10 or so would have been better.
H0ughy, I had a go at doing some processing of your images. I stacked three of the M42 and did some processing on the stack. Still a little noisy but managed to get a little more out of the shot. A stack of 10 or so would have been better.
Anyway here they are.
Thanks Paul, that looks great. As I said I haven't processed anything yet, I will do something maybe tonight (cloudy conditions predicted). I should give you the originals. But I also did take some with 1600 ISO on the dial = graininess . Did you read up on my latest aquisition?
I'm guessing that you took these in Jpeg mode. Since I know nothing about the *ist, does it have a RAW mode?
You realise that you are probably an Aussie Pioneer, pointing an *ist to the sky !!
We will have to get together one day!
Cheers
Tony,
yes it does have RAW mode , however it is not really well supported around the software manufacturers like the canon stuff. it is really not a bad little camera. But is isn't as good as the canon though I will say that.
If we don't manage to bump into each other before Astrofest at Lostock, I will see you there next year.
Tony,
yes it does have RAW mode , however it is not really well supported around the software manufacturers like the canon stuff. it is really not a bad little camera. But is isn't as good as the canon though I will say that.
If we don't manage to bump into each other before Astrofest at Lostock, I will see you there next year.
I understand that it has the same chip as the Nikon D70. Does the software that came with the camera convert the raws to Tiff?
I will do someting with them later.
. now when I get it I will be able to autoguide. 
L.
, however it is not really well supported around the software manufacturers like the canon stuff. it is really not a bad little camera. But is isn't as good as the canon though I will say that.
