Attached is a stack of 250 hand selected images (reduced 50% of the original 640x480 image) taken around 11pm EST on 3-27-06 through the Astronomical Society of Harrisburg's 17inch Cassegrain at Naylor Observatory, Lewisberry, PA.
The CSC was calling for average seeing and transparency through about 10pm that night or I wouldn't have even attempted to do any imaging.
I started capturing AVIs around 9:30 at prime focus (F15, 6477mm f/l) with mixed results. Near the end of the evening I decided to insert an Orion Shorty Plus 2x barlow into the optical path to try to increase image scale (although I knew it was exceeding the diffraction limit at almost a 13,000mm f/l). Saturn was so large at this f/l I had to rotate the Toucam in the focuser so it would fit totally inside the 640x480 frame. I also had to constantly adjust the RA/DEC on the drive to keep it from moving off the frame. At the time this AVI was captured I looked through the shutter on the dome and could barely see Saturn visually, the transparency had degraded to 1/5.
The resulting image is a bit noisy and you can see a dust mote on the lower section of the Cassini division, however I was surprised how good this turned out given the average seeing and 1/5 transparency.
Comments/suggestions welcome.
Weiman
The CSC was calling for average seeing and transparency through about 10pm that night or I wouldn't have even attempted to do any imaging.
I started capturing AVIs around 9:30 at prime focus (F15, 6477mm f/l) with mixed results. Near the end of the evening I decided to insert an Orion Shorty Plus 2x barlow into the optical path to try to increase image scale (although I knew it was exceeding the diffraction limit at almost a 13,000mm f/l). Saturn was so large at this f/l I had to rotate the Toucam in the focuser so it would fit totally inside the 640x480 frame. I also had to constantly adjust the RA/DEC on the drive to keep it from moving off the frame. At the time this AVI was captured I looked through the shutter on the dome and could barely see Saturn visually, the transparency had degraded to 1/5.
The resulting image is a bit noisy and you can see a dust mote on the lower section of the Cassini division, however I was surprised how good this turned out given the average seeing and 1/5 transparency.
Comments/suggestions welcome.
Weiman
Attached Image:
