From: Alan Friedman <alan@greatarrow.com>

Date: March 26, 2008 11:14:46 AM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] dancing with the moons...


Hi Mark,


I use both 2x and 3x the native focal length (3.7 meters) for imaging the solar system with my 10" scope. The amount depends on the subject and the seeing. I almost never image in full spectrum white light - the light loss shooting through color filters limits the focal length for most subjects to 7.5 meters. I use either a 2x powermate or an old A-P 2X barlow for this. Shutter settings in AstroIIDC for this session were .066 and .133 seconds with gain set almost at maximum. For stacking I used the 'low' setting for pixel matching and chose the gaussian blur option for frame selection and alignment. This seemed to work out very well.


I will go back and do a smoother processing with more frames included when I have a chance. I did want to get this image out there before someone else beat me to it! 


best,

Alan




On Mar 26, 2008, at 6:37 AM, Mark Gaffney wrote:

Yes Alan, It was an unexpected pleasure to stop and look at your animation. I had just
"grabbed" your large scale "Plato" moon shot to send to and show my Dad, what indeed was
possible( given many years of experience, I expect!) Without giving too much away- you must
be using a barlow on the 10 inch scope you have to get so close to Saturn? Is this the case?
I`ve tried a couple of times to look at Saturn through my 10 inch reflector but it was much
further in the distance than you obtained! The rings show quite clearly on the "10" as
opposed to my other "4" though.Yours, Mark Gaffney.