Sunday 27 September 2009

The MTV-73S85HP-EX-SW-R colour deep-sky Mintron and an f/4.8 10" Newtonian

An MTV-73S85HP-EX-SW-R colour deep-sky Helix Mintron with a 0.5 focal reducer and an IR cut filter was placed at the Prime focus of a 10" f/4.8 Newtonian.

The video stream was recorded in HQ on DVD. The frames were extracted dircetly from DVD and 281 frames were used (the best 90%) by Deep Sky Stacker to produce the image. A 75% scaled dark frame was used.

This is the image of Caldwell 27 (The Crescent Nebula) obtained.



Caldwell 33, (The Eastern Veil Nebula) was revealed nicely when the best 90% of 176 frames were stacked in Deep-Sky Stacker using a 75% scaled dark-frame.


This image of M82 was derived from the best 95% of 176 frames stacked in Deep Sky Stacker with a 75% scaled dark-frame subtraction.


This image of M13 was derived from 300 frames registered in Deep Sky Stacker and corrected with a scaled dark-frame



The colour balance and levels were adjusted in The Gimp.





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Tuesday 22 September 2009

An MTV-73S85HP-EX-SW-R colour deep-sky Mintron with a large, fast Newtonian

An MTV-73S85HP-EX-SW-R colour deep-sky Mintron was placed at the prime focus of a 10" f/4.8 Newtonian and the video stream was recorded on DVD.

30 minutes of recording produced a total of 354 unique frames that were extracted from the DVD and stacked with Deep Sky Stacker using a scaled darkframe (derived from stacking 127 frames in Registax).
The scaling could be more accurate, but that is for the future.
This is the resulting image of M57.

The final colour balance and processing was done in The Gimp.

An 0.5 focal reducer lens was placed on the camera and 51 unique frames were recorded to DVD before clouds stopped the session. The frames were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker using a scaled dark frame as above.
This is the resulting image of M27

Some coma was introduced by the reducer, but was not serious. The final colour balance and processing was done in The Gimp.
If you are interested in observing or imaging the Sun, take a look at my eBook on 'Observing and Imaging the Sun with Modest Equipment'.
Dont forget to click on 'Older Posts' or 'Newer posts' below or browse the 'blog archive' on the left, or click on 2009 to see all of the posts for this year on one page.

Sunday 20 September 2009

An MTV-73S85HP-EX-SW-R colour deep-sky Mintron with a small, fast Newtonian

The MTV-73S85HP-EX-SW-R colour deep-sky Mintron was used at the prime focus of a Skywatcher 130P Synscan AZ GOTO telescope and DVD recordings were made of M13 and of dark-frames. The camera was set at 256 frame accumulation.
M13

176 image frames were extracted from the DVD recording. A dark frame was made in Registax from 127 dark frames extracted from the DVD recording. Deep-Sky Stacker was used to derotate the images, dark-frame correct them, register and stack them. The resulting image was processed in The Gimp to improve the colour balance and levels.

Dont forget to click on 'Older Posts' or 'Newer posts' below or browse the 'blog archive' on the left, or click on 2009 to see all of the posts for this year on one page.

If you are interested in the Sun, take a look at my eBook on observing and imaging the Sun with Modest equipment

Tuesday 15 September 2009

Andromeda and Omega with a small fast Newtonian

Imaging with the MTV-22S85HC-EX monochrome 1/2" chip, deep-sky Super Wide field, low amp-glow Mintron

There was a wind blowing at my exposed, south-facing field site. I captured video to DVD and managed to get just 32 frames on 256 frame accumulation. Deep Sky Stacker produced the image below:

This image of M17 (the Swan or Omega Nebula) was taken when the Moon was below the horizon.

The scope used was a Skywatcher 130P Synscan AZ GO TO Newtonian
The dust lanes in M31 showed up nicely in this fast little scope.




Take a look at my eBook on Observing and Imaging the Sun with modest equipment


Dont forget to click on 'Older Posts' or 'Newer posts' below or browse the 'blog archive' on the left, or click on 2009 to see all of the posts for this year on one page.

Thursday 10 September 2009

MTV-22S85HC-EX monochrome 1/2" chip, deep-sky Super Wide field, low amp-glow Mintron with a 10" f/4.8 Newtonian

The MTV-22S85HC-EX monochrome 1/2" chip, deep-sky Super Wide field, low amp-glow Mintron was fitted with a neodymium filter and placed at the prime (Newtonian) focus of the Telescope. Even with a rising Moon causing sky glow the Crescent Nebula was visible in the real-time image on the TV screen.
These images were extracted from high quality DVD recordings
Cald 27, The Crescent Nebula
Cald 33, Part of the Eastern Veil Nebula
Take a look at my eBook on Observing and Imaging the Sun with Modest Equipment

Dont forget to click on 'Older Posts' or 'Newer posts' below or browse the 'blog archive' on the left, or click on 2009 to see all of the posts for this year on one page.