Posts Made By: jeff OMeara

Hi all,

I am in the process of dealing with a fellow astromarter for an ST-11000. He is in Spain, has ~20 excellent ratings on AM, but insists on me using Western Union and that I supply him with the MTCN number - sounds fishy to me and potentially like this members account has been highjacked - any suggestions / comments.

cheers,

Jeff

Sorry I posted this in the wrong forum the first time.

Hi all,

I am in the process of dealing with a fellow astromarter for an ST-11000. He is in Spain, has ~20 excellent ratings on AM, but insists on me using Western Union and that I supply him with the MTCN number - sounds fishy to me and potentially like this members account has been highjacked - any suggestions / comments.

cheers,

Jeff

Hi all,

I've been in re-tooling mode lately. I recently sold my ST-10XME and picked up a STL-11KM1. I haven't yet been able to procure the appropriate field flattener, but I was able to get one clear night lately to give it a try without. The conditions were far from optimal (moon, average seeing and poor transparency). I was most interested in checking out the performance of the new chip in the context of my imaging train. I'm still using the SBIG 2" nosepiece and a 2" Optec TCF-S, so vignetting was quite obvious. Some elongation was noted in the corners highlighting the need for the flattener, however it was not nearly as objectionable as I thought it might be. I have cropped the posted image mostly for framing issues. However, if someone is interested, I could post the uncropped data.
I was also interested in evaluating S/N given the lower QE of the STL chip (compensated in part due to the larger pixels). The chip appears to perform quite nicely, the anti-blooming feature is nice in that it allows longer subs. Although slight blooming can be seen in some of the brightest stars in my images, it is not objectionable.

Anyway, comments, criticisms and suggestions are always appreciated.

cheers,

Jeff

Hi all,

Been a while since I've posted, the skies have been uncooperative. I did have one clear night to try out my scope outfitted with an AP67PF82 field flattener. This is M101 and friends; 8x20 min L, STL-11K. Hoping to get some color data if the clouds ever part. I'm quite pleased with the performance of the FF, corners look much better. Very minimal processing in CCDstack only, slight deconvolution, DPP, set levels.

Comments/suggestions?

clear skies,

Jeff

Hi Joe, Floyd, David and Dan,

Thanks alot for your responses, I will try out some of your suggestions. I just completed my dome and automated it with Lesvedome, so I should be able to get more data (if the skies ever clear up).

clearskies,

Jeff

Hi Alex,

Nice job. I noticed that you are at F6.3 with the 9.25. Are you using the celestron focal reducer. I too have a C9.25 (although I image mostly with my NP101) and when I have tried to image with the focal reducer in place I get some chromatic abberations which I attributed to the focal reducer.

Jeff

Hi Floyd,

Great decision on the NP-101. Spectacular optics!!! Did you also get a feathertouch? I actually use a NGF with DRO to do my focusing. The stock focuser is woefully inadequate for imaging (visually it does a pretty good job though). Have you seen Bernard Hubl's website? He has done some very nice work with the NP-101 and an ST-2000.

clear skies,

Jeff

Wow, really nice Jim. Keep em coming...

Jeff

Nice, nice, nice...
Great colour

Jeff

WOW....fantastic detail. Its images like this that make me keep trying. Its also images like this that contribute to my frustration and to my general "equipment fever" that drives my wife crazy...