First light PST mod - 19 June

[Helen]

Here are the first shots from my PST mod

This is a phase1 mod at the moment - PST fixed into the back of a Vixen 80 f11 scope with a 90mm Baader ERF up front.

It took a long time to find the sun so I need to make a solar finder this afternoon!

Focussing was really challenging.

The first shot is with the PST at native focal length, with a DMK21.

The second is an attempt with a 2.5 powermate. The focus point here was right at the end of the PST travel. Given it was late afternoon I'm not sure the seeing was up to the magnification I was trying, which would have contributed to my focus challenge! I failed to get an decent surface resolution with the powermate, and was off to the cricket so didn't have time to try with lower magnification (with hindsight, given how badly Glamorgan played, I should have stayed with my PST:rolleyes:)

The PST mod is still work in progress, but is showing me why I'm doing it!!

Helen

[Dave Smith]

That looks very promising.

dave

[Psychobilly]

Looking promising Helen ...

Dont know whats happening to Glamorgan .. they must be taking tips from the English football team...

Peter...

[brianb]

Looks good so far .... Focusing isn't easy at the best of times and more aperture + more focal length does make it harder. When the seeing is being a nuisance I take it you know this "trick" - turn up the gain way up so you can reduce the exposure to get a sharper image to focus on, even if it's horrendously noisy, then reduce the gain to a "sane" setting & increase the exposure before shooting the movie.

[Helen]

Peter, we saw the first 2 Glam matches and they won comfortably, Essex last week was great too, now the wheels seem to have come off!

Thanks for the tip Brian - I didn't know that! Hope to give it a go again later...

Helen

[Merlin66]

Very good start!

When you see results like that - it's a bit like the smiley face stamp - great encouragement!!!!

Your images can only get better with practise ( and a little help from Registax V5;))

Well done.

Ken

[Helen]

Thanks everyone

[Andrew*]

Nice work, Helen. Wow - what a prominence!

Here's to many more from our awesome modded PSTs

Andrew