New PD camera arived

[Laurie61]

PD Camera arrived this morning and although I might be tempting fate have set up in hope of using tonight

A few shots of my set up-

Will have a go a something easy to start, double cluster, Andromeda and see how I get on

[emadmoussa]

Silly question, what's the spiky stuff on the corrector for?

[Laurie61]

Its an apodizing mask helps you see close double stars and eeks out a bit more detail on planets. This is a bit different from the typical design, my brother designed it on his lap top a few years ago. we have several for different scopes.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/191004-apodizing-masks/page__hl__%2Bapodizing+%2Bmask

[Carl Reade]

Nice setup Laurie, hopefully you get a weather gap, Andromeda is my next target has been cloud here for weeks

[Laurie61]

Thanks Carl, we have the Cheshire gap effect going on at the moment, hoping when sun goes down the cloud will melt Good luck your end

[shirva]

Cracking set up,, not using it on your main scope..Davy

[Laurie61]

The photo shows it fitted to a 62.5mm f4 lens, thought it would give me a bigger field of view whilst I was getting to grips with the camera.

Its lined up with the main optics and I can swap camera for a close up view. Have found the Ring nebula tonight and looked at it at both focal lengths, 250,1600, just make out a small ring at 250mm, much nicer at 1600mm but my mount not polar aligned well enough to go past 128/256x. So not making the most yet from this set up. Have also found Andromeda and Double cluster, It shows the different star colours nicely Sky very good here at the moment, cant believe my luck

[shirva]

Hi laurie,, starting a triple camera imagining rig myself waiting on a four channel av grabber and will run a Samsung scb2000 and a pd1 still working out wether to get second pd1 camera, will use a 6-60 mm zoom lens auto iris and a 8mm fixed lens hopefully will work out ok...Davy

[Laurie61]

Hi davy, having more than one camera is a good idea, saves you having to swap and re focus between scopes. Just had a go for the triangulum galaxy, thought I could see it in bino's but could not find it with the 250mm fl so packed up. When I put the scope back in the shed noticed the lens had fogged, which might explain it Will have to make a dew hood for it. Am pleased with the camera.

[emadmoussa]

Its an apodizing mask helps you see close double stars and eeks out a bit more detail on planets. This is a bit different from the typical design, my brother designed it on his lap top a few years ago. we have several for different scopes.

http://stargazerslou...apodizing +mask

Impressive! Well done!

[Laurie61]

Well after last night's good first light with the PD camera I have made a few changes to the set up. I had the scope under the main tube and this didn't work to well in practice so have put it on top with the finder. My Meade finder was struggling last night, not great quality, so replaced with an Orion Optics which is noticeably better and have tweaked the push focus on the 250mm lens. It now has a flocked dew hood. So out again tonight for another session. Have the camera connected to a DVD recorder and

videoing as I go along whilst watching on a TV.

The tweaked set up-

The camera lens with dew hood -

[shirva]

Looking good..clear skies. ..Davy

[Laurie61]

Another clear night again last night, the few mod's made to the set up helped proceedings

One thing that appeared to be happening last night was not being able to get tight stars without using a IR filter ? The view was definitely nicer with the filter than without, I don't know if this is me doing something wrong or not at the moment. A few shots from last night-

Four frames stacked and levels adjusted.

Triangulum galaxy

Andromeda galaxy

[shirva]

Good images Laurie, could try some dark frames n see how that changes the overall image...can you post details of lens/scope, settings ect....Davy.

[Laurie61]

Hi Davy, yes I could do with taking a few dark's for subtraction, my brother popped down last night and we were discussing this today. Those shots were with a 62.5mm aperture, f4 (250mm focal length) lens. Its not a camera lens but a slide projector lens Its really quite good quality and made by Doctor optics in Germany. Somebody gave it to my brother

We tried a few different settings last night and can't remember what settings were used with these, will have to make a note next time They were slightly different to the recommended ones in the instructions.

This shot was with the Meade 10" at f6.3 (1600mm focal length) 8 frames stacked and levels adjusted

I am taking the frames from a dvd recorded at the time and then using the Cyberlink movie player to grab frames, probably not the best way to do it

This is NGC 6934/ Caldwell 47, took a while to find it

[shirva]

Ach pooh to recommend settings mere guidelines lol...on av forum were shepards no sheep ....we lead the way ha ha ha lol...Davy

[Carl Reade]

Good shooting Laurie, I was out last night to try a focal reducer on the Samsung for M31 epic fail will not focus. Works fine with eyepeices but I fear the extension will be a bit long with the camera to pursue. I managed to bag M110 at least for the first time ever. I have found an adapter online for C mount to M42 mount for my old camera lenses, I have a 200mm zoom, I would like to get M31 in the FOV instead of just the core and should be useful for other larger objects

If you can get the video in PC, VOB frame extractor is excellent then deep sky stacker both free.

Cheers Carl

[shirva]

Focal reducer ok on my ed80 with Samsung. ...just need the weather...Davy

[Carl Reade]

Davy I put the scope on dehneb and checked all I got was the secondary mirror and spider vains. I'm assuming I need an extension but with camera weight I would be reluctant. Probably pushing an f5 scope too far with the chip focus. Still it's all about experimenting.

[Laurie61]

Good shooting Laurie, I was out last night to try a focal reducer on the Samsung for M31 epic fail will not focus. Works fine with eyepeices but I fear the extension will be a bit long with the camera to pursue. I managed to bag M110 at least for the first time ever. I have found an adapter online for C mount to M42 mount for my old camera lenses, I have a 200mm zoom, I would like to get M31 in the FOV instead of just the core and should be useful for other larger objects

If you can get the video in PC, VOB frame extractor is excellent then deep sky stacker both free.

Cheers Carl

Thanks for the info Carl, Ive been using Registax for stacking, will give dss a go. I am thinking an f6.3 reducer on my 10" might be a good idea, it would bring the scope down to around f4 at the expense of image scale. The camera does seem very happy working at this f ratio.

This is the last of the images from my first two nights with the camera, the ring nebula with the 10" -

[Carl Reade]

Yep the cams work very well at F4 to F6. From what i've learned Registax is suited to planets and DSS is far better for DSOs. I usually take about a minute of dark frame with the lens cap on at the intergration your working with and use it to combat the amp glow and get the target lower to the lower right (just for processing later)

Its a lot of transfering stuff to files basically, video to frames then frames to DSS then stack in DSS then in Photoshop for a final souvenir. I get them as good as I can but dont go crazy looking for DSLR results.

Thanks for posting your results M33 I havnt got yet would be very happy if I could get M31 and M110 in my FOV like yours (still working on it)

Processing is a whole new curve but theres plenty of cloud to practice

Keep posting Carl