From: "jimchung2338" <jim_chung@sunshine.net>

Date: June 16, 2009 6:28:07 AM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Jupiter with 16" Truss Dob


Alas, further research indicated Titan's shadow wouldn't begin a transit until well after midnight and Saturn was below 10 degrees by then so I didn't attempt it.  


I did get my truss dob project together, retrofitted it with a mirror from an old Meade Starfinder which need recoating and a fellow Torontonian donated his homebuilt Poncet platform to the cause.  My polar alignment was very rough so there was Dec drift to fight and Newtonian focuser travel are severely limited so I had no room to install a flip mirror, had to do the quick swap between ep and ccd.  Plus I only had a window of about 15 minute between trees at around 4 AM this morning.  


But the mirror figure shows good promise, Jupiter was sharp and the light bucket allowed me to image at very low brightness gains and 60 fps!  A 10 second video capture netted 1300 frames and also hopefully helps in freezing the seeing.  


More work in store.


Jim



http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/Planetary/JupiterDob.jpg