From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: September 25, 2005 4:53:47 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] M2 from Los Angeles

Hi Tim;

Very nice shot for a first time out doing DSO's with Astro IIDC.

I think you'll be impressed with the increased sensitivity your going to get with Mars imaging, as the larger pixels give you about 40% more light per pixel than the ApLux gathers. You can use less gain and/or run at higher frame rates, which will help improve S/N.

I can sympathize with the dew problems. When I was on holidays I tried imaging the day after it had finally stopped raining (3 days worth). The scopes optics would "dew up" after 5 minutes and the only way to briefly clean them was with the hair dryer at max. However to make matter worse, when I checked the optics with a flash light for how dewed they were, a bazillion little gnats and moths would land on the optics and get stuck there. After 45 minutes of screwing around I finally packed it in for the night. After another day of sunny conditions all the dew was gone and the dessert like climate in Saskatchewan allows me to image all night with none of those problems at all.

TTYL..

Milton J. Aupperle

President

ASC - Aupperle Services and Contracting

Mac Software (Drivers, Components and Application) Specialist

#1005 - 815 14th Avenue. S.W.

Calgary Alberta Canada T2R0N5

1-(403)-229-9456

milton@outcastsoft.com

www.outcastsoft.com

On 25-Sep-05, at 10:17 AM, Tim wrote:

Folks:

I uploaded a file into the DSO area this morning.  It's a stack of ten 20" exposures taken with

my new Pt. Grey Flea camera (the camera is actuallly smaller than the Mogg 1 1/4" adapter

with the 0.6 FR lens).

I experimented for about 3 hours last night with various DSO objects.  I would have shot Mars

as well, but was set up in the back yard, and our house is 40' tall, so it didn't rise above the

roof before I started to fade!  Too bad, too.  The seeing was pretty good, though the dew was

moderate.  I don't have a dew heater, so I had to use a blow dryer every 20 minutes or so.  I

thought the clouds would roll in by morning, but they didn't.

Anyway, I am amazed at the quality of the images from the Flea.  Dark frame subtraction in

Astro IIDC works very well, too.  If anything, I found that taking these sample DSO images

with the flea was orders of magnitude easier than my "first night out" with my Meade DSI Pro.

And the image quality is much better, too.