Posts Made By: Roland Christen

While I was in Chile shooting a bunch of deep sky objects, Howard and Dave were busy getting and processing data on NGC1097, using the 12" Mak-Cass astrograph at our remote facility at Las Campanas. This galaxy has interesting structure and some cool jets that seem to radiate outward from the core. This first image is an LRGB processed by Dave Jurasevich.

Rolando

Shot with the 12" F8 Mak-Cass at our remote observatory. Narrowband RGB image using SII, H-a and OIII.

Rolando

We just took this image the last couple days at our remote facility in Chile. 12" F8 astrograph. Combination of 30 sec, 60 sec and 300 sec exposures.

Rolando

From a recent visit to Cerro Tololo observatory in the Chilean Andes. The day begins with the valley below filling up with clouds from the nearby ocean about 40 miles to the west. The marine layer is caused by the cold Humbolt current which flows past the coast of Chile and which produces a climate similar to California. The air above the observatory is not super low humidity like it is further north in the higher elevations of the Atacama desert, but it is very very steady, and the seeing is superb.

A number of cameras mounted on the AP 900 mounts at LaScilla for site survey work.

Just took this picture of the sun setting due west, about 15 minutes after the Vernal Equinox (7:08pm Central time). Roads here in the Midwest run very close to E-W for the most part. This part of north-west Illinois is composed of low rolling hills that the glaciers did not mow down. In the flatter parts of southern Illinois, the roads run for miles in a very straight line.

The settlers who first laid out these roads most probably used a magnetic compass to determine north. Fortunately here the magnetic north and true north are almost exactly the same.

Rolando

Just took this picture of the sun setting due west, about 15 minutes after the Vernal Equinox (7:08pm Central time). Roads here in the Midwest run very close to E-W for the most part. This part of north-west Illinois is composed of low rolling hills that the glaciers did not mow down. In the flatter parts of southern Illinois, the roads run for miles in a very straight line.

The settlers who first laid out these roads most probably used a magnetic compass to determine north. Fortunately here the magnetic north and true north are almost exactly the same.

Rolando

A colorful open cluster in Auriga, placed well right now nearly overhead at dusk.

10 x 120 second RGB, 20x 60 second Luminance. Camera QSI 683 WSG, Astrodon filters. Twin 12" F3.8 Honders astrographs on 1600 GTO mount.

Rolando

Astro-Physics will be showing our newest 130 GT travel scope at NEAF. It is the first prototype model, production versions will be starting in the coming months.

Here some pictures and design details of the new 130:

http://www.astro-physics.com/products/telescopes/130-gt2/130-gt2.pdf

We have made a number of changes to the scope to allow it to be used with larger accessories. The new focuser has a 3.5 inch clear aperture. When used with our newly designed F4.5 TCC (Telecompressor-Corrector), this scope will cover a 60mm field at F4.5.

The lens of this new scope is slightly different from the original, in that the first element is airspaced. This allows all surfaces to be spherical while providing a high degree of color correction from deep red all the way to the edge of the ultra-violet. It is a variation of the very successful 160/175 airspaced design.

The new F4.5 TCC uses ED glass to provide excellent correction into the far violet, and can be used with other scopes that use the 3.5" Feathertouch focuser. (eg. TEC 140/160/180). The multi-element design reduces the blue defocus and produces the tightest possible stars across the spectrum.

The 3.5 inch focuser is also available for the original 130 GT scopes. It can be easily swapped out to replace the 2.7" focuser that came with the original scopes.

To see the scope, come to NEAF.

Rolando

It's galaxy season!

Spring is here, and dozens upon dozens of galaxies are within reach of small scopes. Time to get out under mild spring skies and observe!

Rolando