See Ceres dancing with Pollux

[Whitters]

Take a look at the gallery at http://gal.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/gal089.html
while you are there take a look at some of the latest images, there are some great planetary imagers in the society. Chris Suddell has some real nice images

[JohnP]

Hi Paul,

That is a great animation - My first time to see something like that. It looks like you got amazing depth in the images - loads of stars to see.

Great Work,  John.

[Rocket Pooch]

Do you ever spend any time in doors?

Paul, one question I keep forgetting to ask at the meetings is what mount are you using for these images?  Are you using a tracking device or camera?  

Some of the exposures are quite long in the minutes and yet the stars have no trails.

Also, do you have any animations of Pluto yet

[Mike]

Chris - you DONT want to ask what kind of mount he has

[Rocket Pooch]

I was talking about the one he attaches his telescope to

[Anonymous]

Mike is talking about the scope. From what I've heard you'll still be rather jealous.

[Whitters]

I have been using a couple of mounts. The early shots with the Aero lens is a static photographic tripod. I could get five seconds exposures with the 101mm lens.
Then I remembered that I had a smallcamera tracking platform that fit on the photo tripod, allowing up to 30 seconds.
Now I am using my 18 year old super Polaris mount, which is giving good tracking up to four minutes with a 600mm lens.

[Rocket Pooch]

What's an Aero lens?

[Whitters]

I picked up the lens from a second hand shop. It is a 4"focal length f2 lens used for aerial photography during WW2. I had the lens converted so that I could use it on a normal camera nearly 20 years ago.

[ This Message was edited by: Whitters on 2004-01-28 18:56 ]

[Rocket Pooch]

This is sad, but was it a Mosquito or Spitfire?  Or another ground reconnaissance plane?

Very sad eh!