"Deep sky" with Meade ETX105PE

[Yoddha]

It is nothing special, but decided to post it here, as sample what can be made with small and slow telescope with short exposures.

This the result from Meade ETX105PE + Cannon 1000D. Stack of 8x20s + 4x30s

M13

http://stargazerslounge.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=22753&stc=1&d=1243509910

[Psychobilly]

Thats far better than anything i ever managed to capture with a DSLR on my ETX105...

Well done

Peter....

[Deneb]

mmm, not bad for a Meade ETX

[robindurant]

Shows what you can do if you try. Well done.

Robin

[Yoddha]

Thank you to all!

[MartinB]

Great use of 5 minutes Yooha

[Yoddha]

I'm continuing with my minimalistic approach to the astro-photography. Here is a result with the same setup. Hope that it worths the posting.

M11 - 8x15s+2x20s at ISO 1600

Nice combination of white, blue and orange stars

My plan is to make motors calibration as soon as my cross-hair EP arrives and hope that this will helps to get better tracking - reasonable percent of good 30s exposures. So far I have around 20% success in 15 and 20s and rare 30s shots .

[Aza]

Nice image!

I think you could squeeze even more out of it. The black point is clipped, so the fainter stars are not shining through.

Lovely colours you have there

[Ben Ritchie]

Looks a fun project to me, always something i've wanted to try - there was a chap on Cloudy Nights who did virtually the entire Messier catalogue using an ETX80 and a cheap CCD (DSI pro I think) using about ten minutes per target. Ok, the results weren't going to make the cover of Sky & Telescope, but he had a ton of fun for little expense, saw a lot of sky and was done before I'd got autoguiding working properly...

[bish]

You've done a good job. Astrophotography isn't easy!

[Taff]

Nice capture of M13.Mark

[Catanonia]

Don't take this the wrong way as what you are doing is fantastic and is no way a relection on you.

But I am so glad I didn't go the Meade ETX ebay purchase method of Astrophotography as i didn't realise it was so limiting on the ETX's.

Keep up the great work, add loads and loads more small stacks in. Lots of my images on my website are comprised of 30second stacks.

Will be keping an eye on this thread and any others you do with the ETX to see what is possible.

What is it like for visual as I was considering an ebay ETX 80 for my young lad for Chrimbo.

[Yoddha]

Thanks guys!

Aza, are you talking about "Strech"-ing? I played with it, and there are more stars to show with it, but sadly there is noise too

Ben, definitely it is fun. I got this scope to see if I'll have time and passion for the old hobby. Definitely I'm planing an upgrade now

[Yoddha]

Catanonia,

I have no great experience. Before I had TAL-1 (Mitzar) and used it for visual observing and attempts manually guide SLR. But when I got family man, it become too heavy and bulky to carry around, and I had less time when the kids were small... So I bough the EXT as relatively portable visual scope (with astro photo option) to see how the old hobby will fit in my life again It fits good

As visual scope it looks better to me than Mitzar. I have saw 60 Messies with it since this winter, Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Lulin. Goto is great, my scope is PE so in Alt/Az alignment is 3 minutes problem-less thing. So far the only "concern" is that tracking is not reliable (and it is not expected to be), but hope to get it better Somewhere in time definitely there will be an upgrade, but think to keep this scope

Let me know if you want to tell something more for the scope! I'll post new pictures as soon as I have something reasonable

[Catanonia]

That is great mate, looking to pick up a cheap (ish) unwanted present from ebay for my 10 year old for visual only.

Can get a ETX 80 for about £70 nowadays and would be perfect for a small lad with help from me to align it.

Maybe spend a bit more and get a PE version and have it setup automatically would be nice.

Keep up the great work, very interesting thread this

Catanonia,

I have no great experience. Before I had TAL-1 (Mitzar) and used it for visual observing and attempts manually guide SLR. But when I got family man, it become too heavy and bulky to carry around, and I had less time when the kids were small... So I bough the EXT as relatively portable visual scope (with astro photo option) to see how the old hobby will fit in my life again It fits good

As visual scope it looks better to me than Mitzar. I have saw 60 Messies with it since this winter, Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Lulin. Goto is great, my scope is PE so in Alt/Az alignment is 3 minutes problem-less thing. So far the only "concern" is that tracking is not reliable (and it is not expected to be), but hope to get it better Somewhere in time definitely there will be an upgrade, but think to keep this scope

Let me know if you want to tell something more for the scope! I'll post new pictures as soon as I have something reasonable

[Yoddha]

Catanonia,

The PE version helps in leveling and north finding, you still have to point the 2 stars, but so far they are really easy to determine, because are the brighter in the area.