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Seanelly

By Seanelly
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Seanelly

Seanelly

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   I've been a member for a few weeks, but am only now formally introducing myself, as a lot of that time has been spent working for $, and a lot of the rest in working out the details of my new astrophotography rig under about the worst seeing conditions imaginable this past October here in eastern Ontario.

   For those of you who like specifics (I know I do!), here they are: Sky-Watcher Evostar Black Diamond 100mm ED Pro APO refractor and HEQ5 mount with GPS and SynScan (V: 4.39.05); Orion Deluxe Mini 50mm guide scope with StarShoot autoguider; Kendrick dual channel dew controller with 4" Premier and 3"Firefly heaters; and for imaging a Canon T6i modified (by my techie brother who saved me many $, (though I slipped him 100 of them for his effort!) with an IDAS LPS D1 filter, coupled to an M48 CanonEOS T-ring and Sky-Watcher .85x focal reducer/field flattener.

   For software I'm using (or will eventually use) the synscan GPS for polar finding; PHD Guiding 2 for the StarShoot autoguider; Astrophotography Tool-APT for the DSLR imaging sessions; DeepSkyStacker and Adobe Photoshop with a few astrophoto apps thrown in for image processing; an awesome planetarium called Online Planetarium-The Sky Live; and the wonderful Clear Sky Chart to show me how bad the weather and seeing have been since I got this scope!

   The telescope, 2" 45 degree diagonal, 2" eyepieces and guidescope store in a hard case, but for all the rest of the gear and wiring (oh, the wiring!) I'm using two Dewalt hand-drill hard cases that with a little modifying hold everything for neat and safe storage and transportation. My son, a contractor and Jack of all trades, helped me pour and level a triangular cement pad pointing north for quicker set-up. Into this I drilled a solid eye-bolt for a hefty chain and padlock to wrap around the tripod for a little peace of mind while the scope does it's thing and I'm inside the house watching a game!

   As alluded to, I picked what must be the worst time of year to buy this stuff, or at least to try to use it. I've had it for a month, the first week in familiarizing myself with everything and downloading what I thought was all the right software, the next in deleting the superfluous stuff and testing out what I could while waiting for clear skies, the third in setting up home position and unsuccessfully attempting polar finding on the one clear night available and subsequently firing off a couple of moon shots (nice ones considering, one of them being the only image I've posted here thus far), and this last week finally getting a single night for a trial run with everything I've learned up to then. Once home position and polar finding was complete, I tested the accuracy by auto-slewing nearly 180 degrees to Mars and lo and behold! found the Red Planet dead centre in my DSLR live-view. However, though PHD Guiding 2 recognizes my mount and autoguider, I could not get a star in focus to guide with and as the night was wearing on and it was cold and I had to get up early, I satisfied myself with getting a few 20 second exposures of Messier's 15 and 2 globular clusters and M31 Andromeda to check out later, and though seeing and focus were an issue, I was satisfied that I'm on my (slow) way to capturing the types of images I've been dreaming of ever since I got my 10" Dob twenty years ago. (I tested the autoguider today in daylight with the gain adjusted to 5% as suggested in the manual and it works fine, so I'll get that up and running next time out.)

   One question, please! While the 4" dew heater serves the objective lens, is the 3" for the guidscope objective?

 

Earth's Moon.jpg

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barkis

barkis

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Greetings Seanelly, I presume your Christian name is Sean, If so, perhaps you might like to be addressed with 
that name. Entirely up to you of course.
Welcome to SGL, where all the help you may need is here, you merely have to put your question to the guys here, and answers will flood in.
Nice pic. of the Moon too.  Regarding the Dew Straps, they can be used as you say if necessary. If the night is a dewy one, then they will help 
keep the optics dry.
Best Wishes.

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Seanelly

Seanelly

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   Thank you everyone for the warm reception. I spent a couple of hours earlier today browsing through the first portion of the Gallery Member's Albums and saw very inspiring images everywhere, as I hoped and expected. I truly aspire to achieving with my new astrophoto rig (finally!) some of the great results I've been treated to here thus far (I've had a 10" Starfinder Dob and a fascination with star clusters for twenty years!). Hubble photos are certainly spellbinding, but I find the broad variation achieved by the huge number of dedicated amateurs around the world more interesting and, bonus, never ending!   

   Since I have you here, haha, is a dew heater necessary for the focal reducer/field flattener that couples between my DSLR and the scope, or is dew only a concern on open lenses (finderscope and main objective)? Is interior (camera or scope) condensation ever a problem? I live in eastern Ontario where it is humid and at this time of year climbing or dipping over the freezing mark at different times of the evening. Thanks again.

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barkis

barkis

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7 hours ago, Seanelly said:

 

   Since I have you here, haha, is a dew heater necessary for the focal reducer/field flattener that couples between my DSLR and the scope, or is dew only a concern on open lenses (finderscope and main objective)? Is interior (camera or scope) condensation ever a problem? I live in eastern Ontario where it is humid and at this time of year climbing or dipping over the freezing mark at different times of the evening. Thanks again.

Dew can be a menace to an observer, and /or an Astro Photographer. If the air cools enough, the water will condense
on exposed surfaces, and not just lenses or mirrors, but metal structures too. It can be a depressing time, and will usually put an end to
an observing or imaging session. There is another danger If the user is outdoors and maims electricity is being used to power devices via  voltage reducing
adapters.  Most people would desist from that of course, but I mention it in the interest of  personal safety outdoors. 
Experience in the field will teach you under what conditions demand the use of Dew Straps, and what devices you use will need them.

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