Posts Made By: Charles Stevenson

I hadn't been able to use my Basler A102f for deep sky (long exposure) imaging since the software (firmware) trigger had a max exposure of 4995 ms. An engineer at Basler said I can use the external trigger and so I've now ordered a USB kit that should allow me to control the camera via the PC. Thinking I can script or maybe write a simple ASCOM driver to do the job. This would allow me use my USB filter wheel and hopefully if I can swing the TEC cooling this will be a neat little camera. They run about $150 from Singapore now that factories are moving from Firewire to USB or Gig-E cameras.

http://code.astraw.com/projects/motmot/camtrig/OVERVIEW.html

This should work for Point Grey and other cameras with an external trigger I would think....

You're not alone. I started in January and even in the last 6 months have felt like there's less posts than during the winter. Maybe everyone is off with summer activities and the seeing hasn't been so great. I thought maybe with the Pluto mission there might be a small surge.

What we really need is a nice bright comet that takes over the daytime sky. There's a total solar eclipse in 2017 that will cross the USA and might spark a brief interest. When I read Starlight Detectives it seemed like several influential astronomers of history were working in different professions when a comet or eclipse triggered a life changing obsession.

At my office everyone seems to have some excitement when I show them an image I took from my backyard. Astrophotography is an easy way to inspire but I don't know what makes a person bridge the gap from interest into investing in equipment and sitting outside at -7F looking at the moon. I suppose another thing that has brought about a dwindling is the absence of shuttle launches by NASA. There may also be the idea that there's nothing worth looking at when from the armchair and a laptop one can watch documentaries with footage from the best telescopes or surf the web for astrophotography galleries.

The downside of less active forums is that I feel like I end up responding to quite a lot of posts and wondered if people were sick of it ;-) I never really picked up on CloudyNights since I feel like quality bar is a little higher here on AM.

James Braddy said:

Perhapse it's just me, I 've been out of the hobby since 07 but seems like there's not near as much traffic here, on Cloudy Nights, or in the Yahoo groups as there was back then. Is the hobby dying, or has everyone just moved on to other venues like facebook and twitter? Granted, I'm not tech savvy, I still use a flip phone, don't have facebook or twitter accounts, and have never sent a text message in my life. How do I re-connect with other amateur astronomers?

This seems like a perennial thread/topic/question. Please steer clear from that website!

~ Charlie

Terry Jones said:

Has anyone ever ordered from this website "sale telescopes .com" I was wanting to know if it is a legit online store...

This is a fun and wide image. :-) I like the colors on the dumbbell. On my scope the dumbbell fills up the frame a lot more to the point where star spikes seemed like they would distract too much. In yours they complement it well. For my own taste I would use slightly less intensity/length on the spikes. Nice to see more DSLR images here!

I meant to add it seems you have great tracking and that I'm envious of your coma-free edges.

Richard Ferrieri said:

Captured this image of the Dumbell nebula using my iOptron Skytracker coupled with an Olympus E-30 and Hexanon 200 mm f4 lens. Added a Hoya red intensifier filter and a 55-to-36mm step down ring for 1-stop reduction in aperture. Image was created from four, 4 min exposures that were stacked using Deep Sky Stacker and processed in PE12. Star spikes were added for artistic rendering.

Richard Ferrieri said:

I like using the red intensifier filter - it cuts down considerably on light pollution and brings out more reds in some of the stars.

That's interesting. I'll have to try it out sometime. Is it just red glass?

Good read. Forwarded to several people. Thanks for sharing! :-)

I hadn't seen that website before, Rod. Looks pretty interesting. Are you using it to track your viewing?

I like it :-)

Really neat to see how everything sits in relation to one another. Great photo!

Dave Erickson said:I'll post construction notes and photos during its construction if there is interest... Dave

Very interested! Please keep the updates coming! :-) How are you planning to figure the corrector?