Orpington Astronomical Society

Astronomy => Astrophotography => Topic started by: JohnP on Nov 18, 2007, 10:13:28

Title: I'm Back....... (at last!)
Post by: JohnP on Nov 18, 2007, 10:13:28
OK - as most of you know I made a promise to 'wifey' that after last DSC I wouldn't do anymore imaging until my two daughters were in their newly decorated bedroom - if it had been a straight paint job it would have been OK but it wasn't I ended up moving power points, radiator (major replumbing) putting a new floor down & of course painting & decorating. After 2 months they moved into there room on Friday...!!! YES :-)

How did I celebrate - well Friday night I was out imaging.... :-) Took me about 2 hrs to remember how to put everything together (in fact most things were still packed from last DSC). After having guiding probs with K3 (again) I gave up & switched to PHD - got that working fairly quickly. I wanted to try out my new (2nd hand) Atik16ic camera - more S/W to play with. It's amazing how different it is imaging with a proper astronomical camera instead of a modified webcam. Anyway got it all together & did approx 10 X 5mins subs with Ha filter through ZS66 of NGC281 aka The Pacman Nebula. Reasonably pleased with first try with new camera - seems more sensitive than SC3 & NO Ampglow & very low noise. In fact attached image is with no DARKS...!!! So looking forward to trying camera more at next DSC.

Cheers,  John.

(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/john.punnett/graphics/oas/ngc281.jpg)
Title: Re: I'm Back....... (at last!)
Post by: Fay on Nov 18, 2007, 10:54:27
John,

I must say the finished article is very good!!!!! Must be those new glasses!!!

Fay
Title: Re: I'm Back....... (at last!)
Post by: JohnP on Nov 18, 2007, 11:32:09
Glasses - who mentioned Glasses... No not me surely not....!

In fact I haven't worn them much - just for prolonged periods of reading. The problem with the laptop is that when I wear them I have to sit too close as focus is a lot closer - I've got used to sitting about 3ft away without them so at the mo it's not comfortable - I'm sure I'll get used to them...

Looking at the imaging above - I've overdone it to much... Processing Fits is a bit different to 8-bit avi files...

Thks,  John
Title: Re: I'm Back....... (at last!)
Post by: Fay on Nov 18, 2007, 11:45:42
Welcome to FITS!!!!!
Title: Re: I'm Back....... (at last!)
Post by: Rocket Pooch on Nov 19, 2007, 09:38:06
Four eyes.

Title: Re: I'm Back....... (at last!)
Post by: Mike on Nov 19, 2007, 10:14:07
Nice image John. Welcome back ! With a bit of luck in a week or two when I have rebuilt my mount I can join you too !
Title: Re: I'm Back....... (at last!)
Post by: JohnP on Nov 19, 2007, 20:28:00
QuoteFour eyes.

Cheers - Chris...


Mike - good luck with the mount - I hope it's in time for DSC..... John
Title: Re: I'm Back....... (at last!)
Post by: Ian on Nov 19, 2007, 23:37:53
Looking good John.

Since starting with the Art285, I'm surprised by just how different imaging is with it to webcams. It's like starting again from scratch (ok, so I didn't do that much with the webcam, but you know what I mean...)

It's so easy to saturate a webcam, but much harder with a 16 bit camera...

So will you be modelling your supplementary optics at the next meeting then?