Maksutov Moon

[Baz Pearce]

Got my buddy's Skymax 127mm MCT. Over the other night for some Jovian and Lunar imaging on the 28th. On Jupiter his OTA hammered my newt on perfomance. But i'd say my Astromaster is closer for Lunar for wide areas on the Moon. The limbs of the images are sharper. Got 8 captures in total at 60fps of 1000 frames each. 2000 for the Copernicus and Kepler shot. But saved in between 500-600 for each image. Stacked in Registax5.

Baz.

[sologuitarist61]

Great close-ups Baz - guess you might be borrowing that scope a lot from now on then

[Baz Pearce]

Great close-ups Baz - guess you might be borrowing that scope a lot from now on then

Thanks Richard. Deffo want 1 of my own. But since i've got a better mount and camera than he has. I'm sure we can come to an arrangement.

Baz.

[dephelis]

What camera were those shots taken with?

[Baz Pearce]

What camera were those shots taken with?

These were with the SPC900.

Baz.

[dephelis]

These were with the SPC900.

Baz.

You should be able to get much more out the 127 Mak and SPC900 than that. The following partial mosaic was taken with the Celestron 127 Mak which is identical to the Skymax 127, a standard Skywatcher x2 Barlow and an unmodded SPC900. 18 panels stacked from around 900 of 3000 frames taken at 15fps. There's no need to go up to 60fps on the moon, even in average seeing.

[Baz Pearce]

Given that i am above 9 floors of rising air. Coupled with the fact it was my 1st try with a MAK they didn't turn out too bad.

Baz.

[JamesF]

Or you could just put a DSLR on the back of it and do the entire thing in one hit

James

[JamesF]

The biggest problem I have with the 127 Mak Baz is the mirror shift when the focuser changes directions. That can make getting the focus spot on a pig of a job. I find that I usually have to go through focus and then come back to it, but because of the mirror movement it's a lot further to come back to than you'd expect.

You obviously can't go hacking your mate's scope about, but you might find it possible to make a peanut butter lid mod for the focuser knob that just slips over the top to give you more control there.

James

[dephelis]

Given that i am above 9 floors of rising air. Coupled with the fact it was my 1st try with a MAK they didn't turn out too bad.

Baz.

Heh, just finished reading the post you made in the planetary section. Until two years ago I was lugging my 150P from my flat, up through the attic and on to the non-flat, 'slightly' perilous roof. Thankfully I now have a garden to set up on, but even so I tend to be imaging over the buildings to the south (mine included) and noticing how badly insulated most of them are.

The images you took weren't bad at all. Just letting you know what the 127 is capable of. Frankly, it wipes the floor with my 150P for everthing except DSOs.

You can lower the fps a bit to get higher quality frames even with a lot of local distortion which should affect. Just take longer footage.

If you do get a 127, I'd recommend making a Bahtinov filter for it. It makes focussing the damn thing a lot easier.

[dephelis]

Or you could just put a DSLR on the back of it and do the entire thing in one hit

James

Sadly no DSLR, might well be trading in the SPC900 for a dedicated astro ccd cam soon though.