From: "doobisary" <tjp314@pacbell.net>
Date: February 6, 2010 10:21:43 AM MST
To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Damian Peach
Mark:
I've found my 9.25" to be extremely sensitive to accurate alignment. It's also hard to do, since I'm up on a ladder to reach the scope in my roof mount. Compared to the f/2.5 or so f/ratio of the 9.25", collimating my 6" f/10.3 Newtonian is amazingly easy!
Planetary images will improve dramatically if you spend some time to accurately collimate an SCT.
I've used my Televue 5x powermate for planetary imaging. It does quite well on the 9.25" with the flea 640x480 with the 7.4 micron pixels. It's way too much magnification for the flea2 with the smaller pixels, though. For that, I get my best results with a 2x "shorty barlow" I picked up at RTMC from Stellarvue for $20. In fact, it was such a good price I bought two!
I'd like to try a 4x powermate, but they're 2", and my "classic" Newts have 1 1/4" focusers. The Televues are pretty expensive, too.
Somewhere in a box I have an old Meade 3x, one of those that's about 10" long! Picked it up from the Meade booth for $10 New about 20 years ago when they were selling off unused stock at RTMC. I used to use it a lot on my Jaegers 6" f/10 for planetary. But it's comparable in magnification to an old Televue 2.5x I have, too. I sometimes use that one, but it doesn't seem quite as good as the Shortys.
-Tim.
--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, Mark Gaffney <markgaffney@...> wrote:
I still haven`t attempted to perfect my collimation either using any
of the methods at my disposal. Things seem relatively alright so far
anyway but maybe barlowed Jupiters would show imperfections to a
greater extent than normal..
On 06/02/2010, at 1:42 PM, Mark Gaffney wrote:
My attempts to barlow (2.4x & 2x) Jupiter a while ago were very
noisy & dark..I`m wondering if the seeing was working against me or
whether a Televue type would work better than my cheapo Vixen etc.
ones..Have you or anybody else ever used a Televue 5x barlow for
instance..?
Mark.
On 06/02/2010, at 12:24 PM, doobisary wrote:
Antonio Cidadao of Portugal used to use an AO2 for keeping planets
on chip with his ST5 camera That device has been out of production
for many years, though, unfortunately.
I have an AO-7 with my SBIG ST2000XM. It's great for "guiding" DSO
images, but it (and devices by Orion and Starlight Xpress) can't be
used for planetary for a couple reasons. First, they work at very
slow rates (the AO2 did corrections many times/second). Second,
they get their pointing information from an off-axis chip in the
camera (SBIG) or a guide camera (Starlight Xpress, via an OAG).
I've been curious whether anyone has tried planetary imaging (of
faint planets like Uranus and Neptune, in particular) using an
image intensifier and really short exposures/high frame rates, to
freeze the seeing that would otherwise be crippling with the long
exposures required (shortest exposure I was able to use on Uranus
with my 12.5" Cass was half a second).
-Tim.
--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, Mark Gaffney <markgaffney@>
wrote:
Hey Ray,
Yes it`s my aspiration to become one of these "Deep Sky fiends"!
I`d
like to have my finger in several pies eventually..
Mark.
On 04/02/2010, at 3:19 AM, Ray Byrne wrote:
G'day Mark,
To my way of thinking - well for Solar System imaging the
cameras we
use and good old AstroIIDC is in effect adaptive optics. We are
taking video at an incredible frame rate and then letting our
favourite software ditch all the crap and stack the good stuff
ready
for us to tweak it. I don't think that an AO gadget could work
this
fast and is aimed at the Deepsky fiends who are taking long
exposures.
Just my two penn'th
Ray
On 2 Feb 2010, at 21:27, Mark Gaffney wrote:
By the way Ray,
I assume you`re talking about amateur scopes?! The REALLY big
earth
based scopes (one called the European Extremely Large
Telescope at
42 metres is the next largest on the books!) have adaptive
optics
now which compensate for atmospheric turbulence. Apparently
earth
based telescopes will now rival (or exceed) the Hubble &
it`successors for clear pictures & although astronomically
expensive they`re a fraction of the price of sending these
scopes
into space & maintaining them! They shoot lasers at the sky to
create artificial guide stars which enable these adjustments. I
think for a great price you can get some sort of adaptive optics
for your backyard scope now as well..
Mark.
On 02/02/2010, at 1:07 PM, Ray Byrne wrote:
Hi Mark,
He now uses a C14 mounted on a G11 and transports that to
Barbados
with another guy who uses a C11 on an EQ6. Damian personally
told
me that he thought the C9.25 all round was better than a C11
when
I was considering them both, he probably meant in the UK
generally
- but on Barbados the C14 would be king because if seeing
allows -
aperture rules.
The aperture rules bit has its limits though for planetary
imaging
as even the largest scopes in the world can only resolve to the
limit set by us looking through the atmosphere. In the book
"High
Resolution Astrophotography by Jean Dregesco he felt that 16"
was
the upper limit and any more aperture than that was
pointless. I
must point out that this book was published pre webcam
imaging and
his comments may not be relevant, I'd be interested to hear any
comments on this 16" rule.
BTW Damian still uses the C9.25 as the C14 will not always
perform
that well as often as the C9.25 in the English seeing. There
are
some contemporary Saturns that are C9.25 on his site and the
C11
he sold may the one his mate uses in Barbados but I'm not
sure (he
said the C11 was a great scope).
From my experience tonight my C9.25 is a great scope - out in
up
to -17c at one point. And my EQ6 just did the business after
several months in the same situation flawlessly tracking at
nearly
400x mag. - wonderful gear
ATB
Ray
On 1 Feb 2010, at 18:52, Mark Gaffney wrote:
Hi Ray,
Last I heard Damian had given up his C11 for a C9.25 for his
excellent imaging of the planets. Is this still the case
do you
know, that he uses a C9.25? I know he travels by plane
regularly to
the Bahamas or Canary islands (with the scope in the
cargo) to
get
the best results with turbulence & jet streams..!
Mark.