Posts Made By: Floyd Blue

http://www.astrophotogallery.org/showphoto.php/photo/1833
Please click on the photo for full resolution
I went out last night, conditions were maybe a 6-7 with a lot of light pollution to the north where I was imaging.
But, I wanted to try out a replacement HA Filter I received from Astronomik as well as the NP101 with the ST2000xm.
So, I decided to do a Bi-Color Narrow band of HA and O-III.
HA = 15 x 10min
O-III = 12 x 10 min
Synthetic Green using Carboni Actions in CS2.
Hope you like it.
I am posting a low res version so it will meet the max size for the forum.

Hi,
Here is a pic of the NP101 all set up for imaging.

Hi all,
I got out last Saturday night and captured another Narrow Band image. This time I did HA, O-III and S-II to see what it would be like.
Conditions were fair with some haze and a lot of moisture in the air. Not too bad I guess, but this time of the year it is any night is a good night.
I did a lot of exposure, 6 hr 10 minutes total.
HA = 10 x10min
O-III = 12 x 10min
S-II = 15 x 10min
Combined with a Hawaiian Pallete, O-III = Blue, S-II = Green and HA= Red in CS2.
Hope you like it, I thought it came out OK, but not as good as I would have thought with 6+ hours of exposures.
Be sure to click on the pic to see the full res.

http://www.astrophotogallery.org/showphoto.php/photo/1874

http://www.astrophotogallery.org/showphoto.php/photo/1874
This is the link to the full size and res, be sure to click on the pic to see the full res.
Here is a smaller version that I can post here.
HA, O-II, S-II total 370 minutes.

Here is a version where I added color to the stars, which was obviously missing from the Narrow Band.
What do you think, better?

I am going to attempt to adapt a high precision gearbox to my Losmandy G-11 mount. It is an Ovoid gearbox very similar to the original, except that it has precision gears and ball bearings instead of the plastic spur and no bearing on the shaft. It too is a 25-1 reduction.

The new gear box is coming with a new pinion for the motor. But I have been thinking about this and it seems to me that the programming for the drive would be 25-1 reduction through the gearbox, but with the 18 teeth of the original pinion gear. So it would take 18 teeth to make a complete rotation.

Would this not mean that if the new pinion was not the same diameter and tooth count that the ration would change?
If so, then would this not make it necessary to use the original pinion or else reset the drive programming?

I have been doing some research and it seems that most all the spur gears are a 20° tooth angle. So it would then follow that the pinion should be able to mesh with the new gearbox spur gear.

So, I figure I should see if I can engage the original pinion before attempting to replace it.

Does this seem reasonable to assume? Am I misunderstanding anything here?

Well, it is 72 degrees at LAAS site right now with clear skies predicted for the night. So, I will pack my stuff and head up. The place will be empty except for me, but that is OK, it just means it will be quiet and peaceful and less lights too! 8)
The club house has lots of couches so I will just sleep on one of them and come home in the morning.
Hope to get something in Orion and maybe one other quickie like The Double Cluster or M45 before starting the main exposure on the Horse Head or another Orion feature.
Wish me luck, last night I was fogged out at my local site, so this is my second chance for the month. Looks like the weather will be deteriorating this week and then the Moon and weather will most likely mean no imaging for a while.

Well, the day was absolutely beautiful, with sunshine and clear blue skies. But of course as night fell, the high clouds began to drift through.
So, I started with M45 and just did a 30 minute of each color and then moved to Orion. However, Orion kept getting covered with the thin high clouds, so I decided to change my plans and move north to M81-82. Not much choice really as the clouds were everywhere, but north was at least mostly clear of the thicker bands.
M81-82 I decided to take a full set, 60 min of RGB and 90 min of Lum. I set CCDSoft and went to sleep about 11:30pm and let it finish without my help. If figured it would be fine or not, but me staying up would not help.
I woke up a 4am and shut everything down, covered the scope and laptop and when back to bed.
Really, I was surprised to see that I got any image at all. Here are the results of my efforts. Not the images I planned on taking, but better than nothing I guess.
First, M45

Well, I bought the .8x focal reducer for the NP101 and am waiting for it to arrive. I had to buy the new style for the NP101is, could not find the old style like for the TV85.
All in all, not a cheap purchase, but it will give me a 1.5° x 1° FOV for the larger objects, slightly more than the WO 80mm gave me with the focal reducer.
Now if I can just get some clear skies to try it out.

Hi Gary,
it is not the actual size of the picture in inches, but the size in bytes that you are working to achieve. Wo if you start with a size of say 8"x10" then you choose to save in as JPG and then choose the quality at about 50% and you will see that the picture gets smaller in bytes but stays the same size in inches.