My birthday came early.

[anthony2302749]

Hi All

Usually I would celebrate my birth date on the 14<SUP>th</SUP> of February, but this year in came early. As I will be 40 this year, my wife wanted to buy me a special gift. I tossed around a few ideas such as a flight in a jet fight but decided on a new camera. So yesterday, the wife, child and I head of to Greensborough Shopping Centre and purchased a Canon EOS 350D. You would expect that the wife would hide the camera away until my birthday, but to my amazement she said that I can start playing with straight away, Wahoo!

When through the obligatory charging of the battery, reading the Instruction manual, taking photos of the wife, the child, the cats and trees, loading of software, seeing if I had the necessary parts so that I can attach the camera to my scope etc.

It was also such a beautiful day in Melbourne yesterday I knew I should take advantage of the good weather. By time the sun had set I had pretty well worked out how to use the software which came with the camera, so out to the observatory for some fun. My first target for the night was, you guessed it, M42. After playing around with ASA value I decided on 800 ASA and did a run of 10 images @ 30sec (total integrated time of 5min).
Stacked the images with Registax and process the resulting image with Photoshop. I need to crop the image some what so that I could up load the file to the internet, so the final result looks a bit grainy.

http://www.asv.org.au/index.php?option=com_zoom&Itemid=42 &page=view&catid=72&PageNo=1&key=0& hit=1

If you are wondering the image was taken through an ED80 at prime focus piggyback on top on an LX200, no auto guiding was used.

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[acropolite (Phil)]

Nice work Anthony, make sure you keep up with the family pix as well. Was the LX polar aligned or Alt/Az??

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Congratulation Anthony. Your off to a great start with the new toy.

[anthony2302749]

Hi again

The LX is polar aligned. I have been using the scope for planetary imaging with a Lumenera camera and deep space work using an ST7. With the purchase of the 350D I have finally move into the major league. I am looking forward in tackling all those Messier/Caldwell which are viewable from Melbourne during the year.

Anthony

[hogly52 (Graeme)]

Hi Anthony, Great Picture!

How is your 350D connected to the ED80 (ie. what connecting attachments)?

Cheers,

Graeme

[ving (David)]

great start anthony

just de-grainy it and you'll be off like a frog in a sock!

[anthony2302749]

I just used the standard t-ring for a Canon Eos and a 2" t-mount.

Originally Posted by hogly52

Hi Anthony, Great Picture!

How is your 350D connected to the ED80 (ie. what connecting attachments)?

Cheers,

Graeme

[davidpretorius]

Originally Posted by anthony2302749

I just used the standard t-ring for a Canon Eos and a 2" t-mount.

do you know a good astronomy supplier of those?????

nice to see one of your pictures again, i have missed them (bintel making you work too hard ehhh?)

I was reading your post and thinking, that this will be me in a couple of years time and whammooo, you post a beauty.

Now not too much dso's please, i have been very disappointed with the lack of jupiter and saturns you have posted. so please be a good boy and stay up all night for the next week and post a saturn & and a jupiter and a M1 and a M2, and a M3 and a M4 and a................


if the weather holds, i will have a crack tonight at m42 seeings the dob is now tracking with a two star alignment

well done.

do bintel sell canons???

[ving (David)]

Originally Posted by davidpretorius

do bintel sell canons???

if thats what you call a big dob, yes
I have seen plenty of adapters on the website so more than likely dave. also seen plenty on ebay