Considering specialising.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

With the recent luck that I've had with planetary imaging I think I might drop that side of the hobby. From where I set up the seeing is generally nasty towards the south, and I want to set up a fixed mounting, either a pier or something similar. The DSO M51 that Rog. just processed from my attempt has almost decided the issue because it looks like I can get these images from my back yard. The M51 pre-dates my getting any sort of filters which help enormously with the DSLR so I might be concentrating on galaxies or Messiers in general.

I just scored a caravan in poor condition at the weekend off my sister, looks ideal for sitting in while the 'scope does the imaging so I now need to get that set up and off we go.

Next job is to figure out where the fixed point should be as I want it where I can see the most sky and the fewest street lights.

Captain Chaos

[GordonCopestake]

Sounds good CC. A nice solid pier is a great thing to have. Im just starting to plan building mine. Not sure if im going to go with the poured concrete idea or the steel pipe bolted to the ground. Both seem like good ideas, but the one that most looks like a birdbath in the day will be the winner i think hehe.

When you site the pier make sure there is lots of room around it so if needs be you can build a shed around the pier to "just store your stuff in". Although the caravan sounds a great idea. Plus you can drag it to dark sites etc

Does this mean you are finally selling your OMC140?

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

The caravan was given to me for the kids to play in (yeah right!) as its not really fit to drag anywhere. We stuck it next to the 'scope storage van and there's enough room at the other side of the van for a pier but I have to get the position right as there are three streetlights close by. I can hide behind a wall with the pier, but that blocks the view some more, so as out in the open as possible, but not too much. The pier will probably be a concrete block anchor as the ground won't take bolts. Maybe a heavy steel structure that won't blow away, then I can drag it about if necessary to begin with, then tip concrete on it for stabilisation later.

I might keep the OMC140 for solar imaging in the short term until I can trade it in for a PST. Selling it for cash would tempt somebody else to spend it, and that wouldn't do at all.

The decision is mostly based on my having spent a day with little to do except sit by the fax machine waiting for it to spew out some important paper, so I went back over my AVI files. Most of them have frames that are in focus but those few frames are different shapes and sizes and so don't stack well. This, I think, is seeing and a Barlow lens of whatever quality won't get round that.

I've been trying out afocal imaging to get the image scale up and I've found that it works well but doesn't like seeing issues. The bigger image means longer shutter times on the webcam and that makes the image quality go off, even on individual frames. With the smaller images and shorter shutter speeds more of the frames are good as the blurring didn't happen through image movement as well as seeing, if that makes sense, however they are still not all the same shape so still no good.

Captain Chaos