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recall2005

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Hello,

I've just joined - I'm pretty new to astronomy. I'm 42, a, dare i say it? Tax inspector. I live in clifton in bristol and have ok skies (I think) to the north which has a large open area (the downs for locals) but have a lot of orange to the south.

I just have a small scope, an 80mm f5 skywatcher (which is meant to be quite good) and a webcam (SC1.5???) from ebay which seems to go black every time i plug the parallel lead in but works ok without it. I'm hoping to take some photographs of galaxies and nebulas but expect this to take time.

If anyone knows where i can find a decent tutorial for k3ccd or astroart, that would be a help. If anyone knows how i can work this camera, that would be a help also. I wrote to the man that sold it to me and he sent me a web address but it doesn't work.

I tried a shot of mars on saturday morning but the man that sold me the camera said my scope was too small for planets. is that right? It was just a dot in the picture. It was all blue one side and red the other and very blurry.

Thanks In Advance

Steve B

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Steve, the warmest of welcomes to the asylum!

A Tax Inspector, eh? Well guess what? I'm a Tax Collector!

That makes me even more unpopular than you! :)

Of course we're all part of Revenue & Customs nowadays - but enough about work..............

Can't really help you out on your enquiry, though there should be others here who can. They'll be along soon enough. Unfortunately, I'm a film dinosaur!

Anyway, just wanted to say 'welcome'. Enjoy yourself here & make yourself at home. :)

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A Band D?

24 yrs man and boy I've been IR - it's hard to suddenly be HMRC but hey they say a change is as good as a rest. I've always found a rest better. I've only just finished the inspector's course a little while back so I'm new to the game. I hear promotions are hard to come by as well, I nearly moved to reading.

Oxford TDO is it then?

Steve B

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Steve,

Welcome to forum i hope you find it of great use and fun.

I see you have the ST80 lovely scope i bought one too recently and i am getting some lovely views from it aswell as image's talking of which can be found in the deepsky observing forum\Threads.

No matter what age you are Steve Astronomy is for all and if your new to it then your in the right place as all of us can offer some guidence and advise from our past experiance's. There's quite a few here new to astronomy so i hope you will feel at home here.

Look forward to your future post's..

James :)

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Hi Steve welcome to the forum.

You shouldn't have any issues with the Coxellis modded webcam - I know that his work is very good.

The ST80 is a great little scope... But Coxellis is right they are almost useless for planets - If you were to use a variable projection tube (for eyepeice projection) you may get something worthwhile. I had an ST80 but never even tried the planets with it.

The one thing that the ST80 will be good for is Deep Sky stuff (galaxies etc). Your FOV will be massive, this has a few advantages

1. The sort of object that your going to go for first will actually fit on the chip.

2. Guiding will be less of an issue, still important, but not so hard to master.

You may have to worry about Dew though - my ST80 ws very prone to Dew.

if you have a look at my website you'll see that most of my images were taken with a webcam.

http://anthony.bowskill.org.uk

All the planets / moon and most of the Deep Sky stuff were taken with the Toucam SC1 (excpet M92, M13, M42, M45)

Welcome again

Ant

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Hi Steve,

Welcome to the forum. I hope you enjoy your visits here and we prove of some use.

Your setup is a good one to compliment the SC1 Toucam. Especially for low power images of the moon, sun (with filter), and deep sky. The ST80 has to be one of, if not, the most popular scope ever. Almost every astronomer has owned one and if not they have had the ST102.

As already pointed out the ST80 is not by any stretch of the imagination a planetary scope. I tried desperately to get some planetary images with mine but it was hopeless.

I would recommend adding a second scope to your setup. It's called a Skywatcher Skymax and there's four sizes to choose from - 90mm, 102mm, 127mm and 150mm. The ones that would suit your EQ2 nicely are the 90mm and 102mm. Both will be infinitely better than ST80 for planets. The 90mm is available as a tube only for a little over £120.

If you have technical questions, ask away in the equipment section.

In the meantime....welcome aboard!

Russ

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Steve, to answer your earlier post - you are obviously my superior. A mere part time E1 (working Tuesday to Friday) & a mere 23 years in the job.

Yes, the new title will take a bit of getting used to!

A timely reminder to all here to get your Self Assessment Return in by September 30th if you want the tax calculated for you! teufel%5B1%5D.gif

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