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Sp@ce_d

By Sp@ce_d
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Sp@ce_d

Sp@ce_d

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Just thought I'd pop my head in and say "Hi" from the skies over Scotland. Been looking in through the window for a while, the place seems to have such a nice friendly and helpful bunch of folk hangin out here… I just had to come in…

I've been interested in "whats out there" ever since I can remember. In fact, I still have my star map and observing notes from when I was a kid looking through my Grandads binoculars. A kid whose Dad got him up out of bed to watch the first men landing on the moon! ( yes, I'm still trying to decide what to do when I grow up too )

Anyway, it wasn't until nearly 2 years ago that I got my first real telescope, a Meade ETX 125, I've been drawn in deeper ever since I put my eye to it! Now like so many others, I'm really interested in trying to capture what I see and of course the stuff that I can't actually see but know is out there. I see people getting some amazing images, things really have come on in the past few years.

So, that's what draws me here. I'm longing to reveal for my self some of those fantastic images some of you seem to make look so easy. I know it's not. I've been trying!

Now I have access to the search function I'll have a look around and see what I can learn. No doubt with information overload I'll still be asking lots of questions on selecting mounts, tubes, guiding and imaging… so be gentle ;-) … and of course I look forward to being able to offer help and assistance to others. So I'll do my best to join in. (Apparently my day job background is computer techie sort of stuff ;-)

My current equipment consists of:

Mead ETX 125 PE Telescope

Dew shield

Various eyepieces - Meade 26mm, 9mm, 6.7mm UW

Televue 8mm - 24mm zoom and 2.5x powermate

moon filter/polariser

T adapter etc. for Meade

Nikon D80

Oh yes and I ordered a Philips SPC880 webcam from Morgans on Monday. I'm hoping it's going to be much better than my attempts with a couple of old webcams I cannibalised in the past!

:)

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JamesM

JamesM

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Hi and welcome to the forum.

You will have seen through past posts that there are different levels of imaging. It seems to me that in the longer term you are interested in deep sky imaging. Now while webcams are great for lunar/planetary images where you can collect a lot of frames and 'registax' them in order to select the better ones to make a composite image, for deep sky it requires a bit more 'hardware' to collect faint light from galaxies etc. I expect you know about this book already but Steve Richards "Making Every Photo Count" (FLO £19.95) will provide you with a comprehensive guide to all levels of imaging. It is important to let yourself know from the outset where the 'darkside' :) (imaging) will take you because very quickly becomes expensive and time consuming both in the collecting of the data but also later on in the processing. If you read this book, then you will have most of it covered because as you say, it seems easy to do but the devil is in the detail not to mention the weather!:):D

Glad you could join us and keep up the research and I'm sure you'll get there!

James

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Sp@ce_d

Sp@ce_d

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Thanks all for the warm welcomes.. :)

James you are right, DSO's are my real goal and holding back the temptation to blindly buy more gear has been intense to say the least! "Making Every Photon Count" has been on my shortlist, the trouble is running before learning to walk has been known to me before :) and the temptation to add other things to the order "whilst I'm there" has made me hesitate in the past ;-)

However, I shall order it straight away, and resist the temptation until after I've read it!

Graham

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Sp@ce_d

Sp@ce_d

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Oh yes.. Steve's book was waiting on the doormat when I got in from work. Had a flick through then realised I'd read into chapter 4 and I still had my coat on !!

For once I'm not looking out the window every 5 mins checking for the gap in the clouds. You can't beat curling up with a good book.. looking forward to this... :D

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