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Posts Made By: Floyd Blue

October 3, 2007 04:18 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

Case Picture for Michael

Posted By Floyd Blue
Hi Michael,
Here are pictures of the Pelican 1650 with the G-11 that you wanted to see. Plus the pictures of my cases I made for the tripod. The tripod legs have been pulled out of their pockets slightly for the picture. They fit completely into the pocket and the flap then keeps them closed and separated so no rubbing together.

October 3, 2007 10:57 PM Forum: Eyepieces

Re: How big is 1mm?

Posted By Floyd Blue
First, buying with the intent of reselling for a profit makes you a dealer if you resell them here, by definition, so I would not speak too much about that.
Second, the 4mm and the 5mm are just alike as far as performance is concerned. The 4mm is too much EP for many people and their conditions. 1mm makes a huge difference.
Let's take a 2000mm f/l (8" f/10 scope 400-500x) for instance. There is 100x difference between the 4mm and 5mm. With a 3000mm f/l scope (12" f/10 750-600x) it is 150x difference.
So many find the 4mm too much power on most nights.
Keep what you want and sell the ones you don't want or need.

October 4, 2007 06:46 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

My G-11 with 127ED and 80mm Guide Scope

Posted By Floyd Blue
I just wanted to post a picture of my G-11 mount with my 127ED and 80mm Guide scope. It is much larger in person than it looks in the picture, really seems big to me. smile I was learning the Gemini alignment procedures today. Figured it out and now am ready to try the next step.

October 4, 2007 09:21 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

G-11 "Latitude" locking knobs

Posted By Floyd Blue
Hi all,
I did not like the Allen screws for the DEC lock. I found nice clamping knobs at Budget Bolt for $3.50 and some Nylon washers that keep from scratching the metal as it slides by during DEC adjustments. These work great and are a nice easy and cheap solution to the problem.

October 7, 2007 08:04 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

1st Image with the G-11!

Posted By Floyd Blue
Last night the seeing was good, not great. But I went out to Wind Wolves Preserve for a 1st light for the G-11.
Here is the 1st image taken with the new mount. Luminance only, 11 x 8 min, Processing just stack, dark frame removal, high pass filter, no other enhancements.
What do you think? I am excited, the mount was really steady and tracking was great!

October 10, 2007 10:27 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

NGC_253, finsihed color image

Posted By Floyd Blue
Well, last night I got the color data for NGC_253. Conditions were not that great but I did get the data and it came out OK. May try again on another night. But I am fairly satisfied with the end result. 12 minutes (3 x 6 min) each of RGB on 120 minute of luminance/

October 12, 2007 11:25 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Counter Weights for G-11

Posted By Floyd Blue
Well, I was going to buy some smaller counter weights for the G-11, it came with a 21 lb weight. Looking at the prices they are asking for them, I decided to drill out some 1" bore weights that I have here. Went down to a local machine shop that said they would do it, for $80!!!! That was actually 1/2 of their normal minimum labor! 8O So I found a 1.25" drill bit at Harbor Freight for $12, but shipping was $7, so it cost me $20 bucks. I figure, this is still cheap when you consider the cost of having it done and that many places wanted $80-120 for a drill bit of that size. Now I will have to wait for them to ship it too me. Next week hopefully and then I get to try it out.
When you want a weight with a 1.25" or larger bore they seem to go up in price, now I think I know why.

October 16, 2007 03:26 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

Latest image, a retry at M33

Posted By Floyd Blue
Hi all! grin
Last night I got out with fair conditions and got one image. I did not setup the shot as well as I could have and the galaxy is not horizontal. But it was a test image to check out whether I was getting a goo polar alignment and to see what weights for colors I should use for this type object.
Here is M33, 10 x 8min Lum, 2x 8min RGB.

October 18, 2007 03:30 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

G-11 counter weights

Posted By Floyd Blue
Well, a friend offered to bore out my weights using his lathe, nice of him. So, I will not be trying to do it with the drill press. Turned out that they were cast iron, so that drilling would have been messy.
But, now I have a full set of weights for the G-11, 21 lb, 7.5 lb, 4 lb and a 3 lb. So that should take care of my needs for now. The 21 lb was really overkill for my setup.

October 19, 2007 05:51 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

PEC Training complete, here are the results

Posted By Floyd Blue
Hi All,
Well, I went in the back yard last night and did 4 iterations of PEC on the G-11, with each one averaged to the next. I used PHD guiding to guide while training the PEC. This worked quite well as others had told me on the Yahoo forum.
Polar alignment was done just using the polar scope, no drift was performed.
I took a 4 minute un-guided photo of M33 to see how it tracked. The worm period is 4 minutes, so I thought this would be a fair test.
There was a slight amount of drift, but nothing bad, and the stars were pretty good I thought. You can see the drift though, but there is not a lot of PE that I can see.
Here is the shot with only a little adjustments made to make the stars stand out well.

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