Posts Made By: Mark Keitel

Finally figured out that I was mixing up my Blue / Green filters when I was processing, so the colors I have been getting were off and I had no idea why. Well here is a galaxy that I did with the right color filters used for the right channels

FRC 300 F/5.9
SBIG 10xe camera
Optec IFW with Optec filters

Mark

I was so intrigued with Frank's Rosette image in Ha with the Tak FS-60c and SBIG 10xme camera that he made me want to try the image out myself last night. Though I decided to take a different approach on the image, using the less sensative SBIG 10xe camera and a 10nm Ha filter, I decided to do 15 min sub exposures.
did not realize how large this object really was since it does not show the full size on TheSky as I can tell at least

Tak FS-60c
Sbig 10xe
10nm Ha filter
13 x 900 sec

Hope you enjoy

Mark

Well since the Moon is out and the camera is on the little scope I figured why not another wide field Ha image
So here it is
Sbig 10xe 10nm filter
15 x 900 sec


Mark

Some have asked me to post images of my Observatory so I decided to post a few now and then some tomorrow and so on
This is a third story observatory, and the pictures of the roof and frame are posted earlier on this forum too

Thank you

Mark

Building an observatory on the third floor has many obsticals. The one that everyone thinks of is the pier, and the stability of the scope. I wanted my walls to be of normal height and realized very quickly that in order for the scope to view over the walls and to the horizon that the pier would have to be at least 6' above the concrete floor. Then add the height of the mount and the scope and I would need a step ladder to view all the time. So I built a platform around the pier 30" above the floor. The platform is 11' x 11' making a nice place to view from.
Then the calculations needed to be made on where to cut the pipe in oder for the mount and scope to just miss the roof when it is moving. ( made it by 1" ) then the top plate for the mount to attach to my 10" steel pipe, and its 5/8" walls ( filled with 500lbs of sand) needed to be attached to the pier some how. I had a custom sleeve made that would fit right into the pier that the AP 1200 mounting plate could be bolted to. Now the trick was, to weld the cutom plate to the pier in the right orientation, so that when the AP mounting plate is bolted onto it, the mount is pointing very close to North. This was done with a pointing compass ( a compass that I has since I use to race sailboats and is used for plotting a course to the next mark ) and then knowing how many degrees from magnetic North the Celestrial Pole is from my location. Needless to say when they were welding the plate to the pier I was sweating and asking questions like, if I am off can we cut the plate off and re-weld it again?

Needless to say all the triple figuring paid off and nothing had to be re-worked.

Walls inside the observatory are all sheet rocked. Then painted a dark dark blue, using outdoor paint. I covered the floors with a charcoal color indoor outdoor carpet. Two sides of the platform are up against the walls, the third side is also up agianst the wall and the other half of this side also has the steps, and the fourth side is open to the room, I had a metal tubed railing made, and I bolted it to the platform. This way at night I will not walk off of the edge of the platform by mistake, or have guests take the large step down either.

Kind of got ahead of myself with the talk and the pictures, The others will follow in Part III

Any questions feel free to ask,

Mark

Well the first scope to be set up in the observatory was a Mewlon 300 with from friends/ FSQ 106 and FC-60
Worked out very nicely

The metal railing ( red primer ) is now the Dark darl blue color of the walls and steel beams of the ceiling are also painted the same color

Mark

Taken at WSP 2004 in winds of 18 - 20 knots with higher gusts
Glad that I had a Tak FSQ 106 mounted on top of my larger scope, It tracked fine with an AP 1200 mount and over 125lbs worth of equipment on it

there are a few Galaxies in this image with the right South ( not due South though ) not sure on what the ones on the right might be since I can not find them in any of the charts that I have looked at to date.

Tak FSQ 106
SBIG 10xe
Optec IFW and filters
R= 10 x 480 sec
G =10 x 480 sec
B = 10 x 480 sec

Was testing out a new version of the Tak FS-60c ( 40mm shorter than the one previously sold) The original one I could not get my image train into focus with it
Scope>Camera Angle Adguster>SKy90 reducer/Flattener>OptecIFW>DF-2>SBIG 10xe

Each sub was 1200 seconds x 18

The two stars bloomed tremendously and had a rough time trying to de-bloom them even with Ron's fantastic De-Bloomer program

Mark

Will this ever end or is our night sky going to be extint like the creatures of long ago?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/03/11/russia.space.ap/index.html

What is your take on this?

Mark

I could not find an image taken of this object so hope I got most of it
Taken with
Tak FSQ 106
SBIG 10xe
Astroden 6nm Ha filter
11 x 1200 sec

Thank you