Posts Made By: Alex McConahay

I spent my evening trying to capture 108. You done better!

Alex

Try

http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/COMP2.HTM

for a complete description of this commonly used technique. There are other ways to do the same thing.

Alex

One of the guys in our club (Riverside Astronomical Society) can find all of them without star charts, goto, or anything. He has them memorized. He regularly gets all of them except M30.

Last weekend (when I got 104) he had all of them except M30 again. He could point right at it. But it was too light. Just to confirm, at 5:30 am, he walked over to another guy's scope which that guy had been using with goto to nail every one of them. He asked to point to M30, but the scope would not go there because it did not rise until 5:34 from our site. At 5:34 the scope went right there and saw only light blue.

Even from our site in southern California, I had to force the tube down to get one of the southern globs. It was visible in the finder, but the tube would not easily go low enough. Otherwise, I missed 74 at the beginning (never could find the guide star), and the last few in the morning--I was just not familiar with that part of the sky. As for the Virgo cluster, the best way to do that is to galaxy hop. I draw a line between the easternmost star in Leo and the northernmost star in Virgo. About a third of the way east from Leo is a good guide star to 98. Then a little east and south to 99, then.....But since there are essentially no guide stars from there on, it is just galaxy hopping.

But I still have to look up all but about five of them them in Sky Atlas 2000. I even have to look up M13, because I can never remember which side of the trapezoid it is on.

Alex

On any given scope, I think three eyepieces are enough.

I tend to spend most of my time in a 22 Pan, and a 9 Nagler. For really wide fields I have an inexpensive (BW Optics I think is its name, but it is available from others) 30 mm 82 degree FOV. I use that for star hopping and such. But I usually observe with the 22 or the 9.

Alex

I love Athens. Was there for the Transit of Venus.

I would try to find a darker spot for observing, as I am sure you do when you can!

But I really do love that place.

Alex

Could you tell me more about what the S&T article says, or point me to any other websites that could tell me how to treat the Virgo/Coma bunch?

Alex

Under Termas of Service, Section 15, Prohibitions is included:

(h) Any item/s that are placed on any other site for sale at the same time it is offered on AstroMart.

ANY violations can and most likely will result in the deletion of your account including ratings.

So, yes, Astromart or someplace else, but not both.

Alex

I have seen lots of changes at Sky and Tel since they were sold to the investment group. I do not think we have seen YET where the "new" Sky and Tel will end up as far as difficulty of articles, graphics, etc.

Alex

Don't know about Florida, but as for Ohio State, where my wife's family lives--

Columbus is in the middle of a big state, with lots of people. The pro sports teams (who are not Buckeyes) live in the opposite corners of that state. So, believe me, Ohio State is the biggest game in town. And, as I said, it is a big town.

Do you know how many time I have gotten Ohio State hats, sweatshirts, pens, pencils--I have a map of Ohio made of wood. All given to me by loving in-laws.

Alex

At the most basic level, you will want a piggyback mount to start with your current camera lens riding on top of your regular scope.

After that, you will want to use a camera adapter. It has a 1.25 (or better yet 2.0 inch) nose that fits in your focuser drawtube, and it ends at a set of t-threads that attach to your camera lens mount. You put them together, stick the thing in your focuser, make it look sharp in the viewfinder, and snap the picture.

Oh--you want good looking results........That is a different story.

You need a mount that can hold the camera steady. You can get by for a while with whatever you have if you want to limit to the moon. But after that, you will need a really good mount.

I am not familiar with the Portamount.

Skip eyepiece projection for a long time. Start with your camera lens at a wide-field setting, focused at infinity, and take 10 to 30 second exposures of constellations. Or take pictures of the moon.

Then use your wide field refractor with that camera adapter.

To focus, use your viewscreen, and blow it up as much as you can, and see how well it works. (It won't, unfortunately)
There are many other ways to do it, but frankly, it is beyond what you can get in a forum practically speaking.

Do some google searches on Astrophotography. Especially look to Jerry Lodrigus's Catching the Light website.

Alex