M57

[rikyuu]

Well after a long absence, mainly due to continuous clouds and a new addition to the family, I finally got the scope out last weekend.

Quickly managed to snap an image of this beauty just hanging there in the sky (actually a photo of live image on the LCD monitor, so not very high tech. I've invested in a cheap laptop now so hopefully should be able to capture images directly). I think the central mag15 star is just visible.

(click to enlarge)

[Sam]

Well you certainly picked up the detail! well done.

[steppenwolf]

Well, its a novel method of capture but it certainly worked well!

[ncjunk]

So that is a live image? Is it through the mintron? I like the look of that as a live image

makes a change from having to wait ages and then process everything.

Ncjunk

[rikyuu]

So that is a live image? Is it through the mintron? I like the look of that as a live image

makes a change from having to wait ages and then process everything.

Ncjunk

live more or less. The Mintron can integrate up to 128 frames (the jury is stilll out as to exactly how it does this), but suffice to say it can see very dim objects. I think I had it set to 48 for this one hence the image is updated about every second, so effectively live but a lower frame rate.

I would love to get the beautifully detailed colour images from long exposure imaging, but just haven't got the time to correctly polar align the mount, capture long exposures and process the images afterwards. I can have the scope setup on the EQ6 with camera and monitor connected in about 20 minutes. With the relatively short exposures of the Mintron, accurate polar alignment isn't neccessary. This M57 was at about 300x magnification, but still stayed in the frame for at least 30 minutes even though I only roughly pointed the EQ6 to north and 52 degrees. A quick tap on the controller brings it back to centre.

Hopefully with the laptop, I can grab the images directly through a USB video grabber. More to the point I can run Stellarium next to the scope to find stuff more easily, rather than relying on printouts from the PC. My biggest headache is finding stuff! :oops: