C6-NGT First Light

The sky finally cleared, it was a warmer evening than its been, and my new C6-NGT was just waiting to get outside to focus some photons on the Canon Rebel T3's sensor.  I would have attempted to autoguide, but I left my USB to serial dongle at work, so I had to run unguided for these images.  The first image I captured was that of the Horsehead and Flame nebula.  I wanted to image subjects that I've imaged before with the camera lens.

Theres a substantial amount of noise as I took these from my backyard, where the light pollution is bad enough to show up.   This scope is fast - these images are only 1 min subs.  Both are running about 20 frames.

The second object I photographed was M42, and it came out incredible.

I hope you agree with me.  These are by far the best I've taken so far.

Tonight's Jupiter with Equipment Problems

Took the scope out for a session, and it does appear the alignment is off. I have to figure out what I'm doing wrong, something silly with the secondary mirror. It did not appear centered in the collimation eyepiece. After centering the mirror and adjusting it, the images have a nasty coma. I'm going to set it back to approximately where it was before I adjusted it and realign as best I can, as the scope appears to show better images the way it was. Anyway, one good thing came out of testing tonight, the Ponset platform appears to be working better. I re-geared the drive worm, and it appears to run smoother, and has very little periodic error now with the bigger gear on the worm screw. I ended up taking the refractor out and photographed with that. Because of all the color it shows, I ended up discarding all of the color information and made the final image monochrome. The image I ended up with wasnt too awfully bad, there is some reasonable detail here. This is probably one of the better images with the refractor. I took this image using the old 2X barlow - the same one I use on the newtonian. Being the focal length is only half, the image was quite small, so I resized it in Registax and ended up with this:

Jupiter 12/1 - Increased Capture Speed

A suggestion brought to me to decrease some of the contrast and perhaps bring out more detail on the planetary disk.  I thought I'd try doing a 10 fps capture with 1000 frames captured.  I think it'll help somewhat, however, at 10 fps, I'm getting an onion skin effect.  However, I think its going to work.  I also found that the poncet platform vibrates more when it gets cold out, and I believe my image4s would have been better if the vibration was 10 dB less.
Here is a sample of what I captured.  I had a lot of problems with the platform tonight, and many of the AVI's were unuseable.

This image was done at 10 fps, and you can see the onion skin effect creeping in on the left side of the image.  I think there would be more detail if the vibration problem wasnt there.  This used 1005 out of about 1200 frames.

This image also used about 1000 frames.

I took a few later in the evening, also at 10 fps.  The GRS was rising when I took the above images, so I wanted to take a few with it near the CM.

I believe this one turned out pretty good actually.

For grins, I thought I would try a cmos camera, as it is a bit newer and is capable of running a faster frame rate.  I couldnt get the color balance correct in Windows 7 however, so it did not come out real well, but it is showing some detail. 

Looks like I have some work to do.  I have some ideas to reduce the vibration in the platform, so hopefully the next time I photograph, it will be gone and the images will be better.

Jupiter 11/23

Had the scope out and took a few images with the dob on the platform.  It seems to work pretty well with the new motor, but the new motor with the worm gear has to run pretty close to top speed to track.  Here is a picture of the scope setup...

This is the dobsonian that I purchased at the state auction for $22.

This next image is one of Jupiter that was taken just after the above photo was taken.

There are 2 moons visible, I believe one is Io and the other is Europa.  As you can see, there is some detail, and was not too bad an image.  This image consisted of about 500 frames.

When I had the scope out, I also noticed that the scope's collimation was a bit off.  It is something that I'll have to take care of the next time I have it out.  Not sure how much better the images will be when its all adjusted correctly.

First Light With the Ponset Platform

As promised, I'm going to post the first image using the 6 inch dob and the Ponset platform.  There are some bugs in it, for one thing, the motor turns too fast and blurs the image if I slow it down so the image stays put, so I'll have to use a different stepper with a worm gear to drive the threaded rod.  I took this image quick, using 10 fps, and it has bad onion skinning, but the detail is pretty good.  T took 1000 frames and used most of them for this image:

This was the only image I was able to take, as it clouded up soon after.  It was partly cloudy when I took this image, which is why I only took the one at the faster frame rate.  Detail in the SEB is better.  The GRS looks like its about to rise, as you can see it on the western limb.  I was never able to resolve it that close to the edge before.  Once I get the bugs worked out, I believe this will be a very useful tool. 
I also didnt have it aligned quite right, as the image creeped upward on the screen.  It is probably an error in the construction as to the elevation of the north pole.  I'm not certain it can be totally fixed, but I will attempt to elevate the north side of the platform to correct the error.  This Ponset is a test platform.  Its pretty ugly, and i did hurry to build the wooden parts just to see if it works, which it appears to.  I may build another, while paying more attention to detail.

Poncet Platform

Because my main interest in astronomy is in photographing the planets, and I am having some success with the dobsonain, I thought I would build a Ponset platform.  I found this device online, and they are not too difficult to make.  Basically, it is a small platform that you sit your dob on which tracks the sky for about an hour or maybe hour and a half.  The design is too complex to do a complete description in a simple blog post, but a nice writeup is here -->  http://homepage.ntlworld.com/molyned/the_equatorial_platform.htm

I dont fully understand all of the math involved, but they have to be designed for your lattitude, there is an Excel spreadsheet file here --> http://members.ziggo.nl/jhm.vangastel/Astronomy/Poncet/platform.xls

I have not yet had the opportunity to test the mount, but the next clear night I will post photos of the results.

6 Inch Dob

I picked up a 6 inch dob at a government auction real cheap - $22
It is a Meade Starfinder.  Not a super quality scope, but... the optics appear to be pretty decent.  The views in the eyepiece seem decent, there is some coma because I know I dont have the collimation down perfect yet.  I did a rough collimation, but I think the secondary is off a little.  I did photograph Jupiter however, it was variably cloudy tonight, but there were periods of decent viewing.  Here is what I got:

Not my best images, but keep in mind this is a dob, so its totally manual with no clock drive.  I imaged without a barlow, focal length is about 1200mm.  It is a 6", f/8 scope.   The red spot is rising in these images.

One more image where I captured 3 moons...

Notice the moons are nice and round, and quite bright.

I also think part of the problem is I think theres a setting in the camera thats off a bit.  Maybe I should turn up the gamma a little, as these are way too "contrasty".  I apparently did not have much saturation, there is very little color.  I do believe this scope shows some promise however.  I posted these images as a reference to compare to once I do more work on the scope.

Added baffles. Sample Jupiter Images

I added a baffle yesterday and repainted the inside of the tube with a little better quality flat black.  It appears to have made a difference.  Tonights conditions werent terrific, but it seems like the contrast has been enhanced some.  Transparency was bad, but seeing appeared to be ok, as it wasnt jumping around much.  The rising moon was a different story however, but it was low and I'm not going to post any images of the moon, as I dont feel it was a good test.

 This one appears to have a decent amount of detail.  Beginning to see some activity in the EZ.  There is a dark red spot in the SEB, just ahead of the GRS, which in this image is just over the horizon.  CM I: 155 II: 82  III: 15

 The moons which may be visible in this image (they were when I processed) are Europa on the left and Io and Ganymede on the right.

 This image is showing some activity in the STrZ rising.  I: 165 II: 93 III: 25.5  The same 3 moons may be visible in this image as well.

Here is a monochrome image.  I believe when we get better conditions, the amount of detail will improve.

This image and the next were taken using Sharpcap on my Windows 7 laptop.  These were taken about 30 minutes later, and show
 CM I: 196 II: 123 III: 56

My Best Jupiter Images Yet

I was busy yesterday.  I rebuilt the optical tube on my 127mm because that home made focuser just wasnt aligned and I could not improve on it.  The optical tube was also too short, which I made up the difference using a piece of 2 inch pvc.  I had another piece of 5 inch tube that was a little bigger than the correct size, so I cut the tube, and it is now the perfect length.  I have also aquired those 2 114mm reflectors.  I removed one of the focusers from the worse of the 2 scopes and epoxied it to a new end plate made from a piece of raw electronic printed circuit board material.

Everything is nicely aligned now.  I started photographing Jupiter around 0400 local (0800Z).  I finished the session taking a sequence of 7-1000 frame AVI's to be used to make this animation:

As you can see, the detail that you can see on the planet is real and not noise due to sharpening.  I actually was a little conservative on the amount of sharpening that I did on the image.  The GRS is visible, as well as a barge in the NEB.  Note that the NNTeB and the NTeB are both resolved and rotate.  Detail in the EZ is resolved.  Going to the south, I am resolving a north and south component in the SEB with white spots seperating the 2.  The STeB & SSTeB are there, but poorly resolved, however you can see rotation there.

This is my first attempt at an animation.  I havent quite figured out how to make an avi animation, but this animated gif worked out.

The following images are images I had taken earlier in the evening, testing the changes made to the scope.   I could see right away from the images on the screen that I had made progress.  My most detailed still image I believe is to the left.  I have never been able to get this much detail before.  Also, the red spot is more yellowish in this image, which approximates the color I have seen in other recent photos.

I took quite a few AVI's this evening, and if I posted everything, this would be a rather long post.  I will, therefore, put up only the best images I took this morning.

This last image is a tossup between the "best" image at the top of this post.  This image shows more detail in the white areas than the other, but the other shows a bit more contrast.   The 2 images were taken about 5 minutes apart.  The difference between the 2 are mostly post processing differences.

This morning's conditions seemed quite good, transparency was excellent because of the lower humidity, and seeing wasnt half bad, better than average.

I am still having trouble finding the optimum focus.  It is difficult to tell on the screen .  Basically, I have been shooting for sharpness on the fully lit side of the disk, as well as best contrast in the belts.

Also, I was able to see (but not photograph) Mars.  I believe it is still quite small.  The next morning I do this, perhaps I'll take an AVI or 2 of Mars, just to see if I can see anything with it so far away.  I doubt i will be able to, which is why I didnt attempt it this morning.

New 3X Barlow and Some Saturn Pictures

I ordered a Meade Series 4000 3X Barlow last week, and it arrived on Monday.  Tonight was the first evening that I was able to try it out.  I think I had the focus pretty good, but its possible I could have done better.  I'll have more time to play with it, since it is supposed to be clear skies for the next few days.  Seeing appeared fair, but the transparency was excellent.  The Milky Way was visible it wass so clear.

Here are a couple of color images I took tonight with the new barlow.  I did not take any monochrome, although I should have.  I'll take a couple tomorrow night.  Here are the images:

possibly poor focus

camera zoom

this is the original size with the 3X.

I used the 127mm.  The effective focal length was 2100mm with the barlow.  My little trick sliding the camera in and out of the barlow really helped with the focusing.

I also tried using the 3X and the 2X back to back, but the image was too dim to get a decent photograph.  Notice on the 2nd image, the serpent storm is pretty clearly visible.  I am surprised that the Cassini Division wasnt as pronounced this evening.  Its possible I wasnt focused perfectly however, and that might be why.  Is the barlow going to make a difference in the image quality?  Right now, I'm not certain, the 2X may have the images at the limit of the telescope, but I thought being this is a much higher quality barlow than the 2X, that perhaps I would see a little more detail.  The serpent storm is pretty well visible, so perhaps the quality has improved.  It'll take a few more sessions to know for certain.

New Clock Drive and Some Saturn Images

Built a new clock drive using a stepper motor that has far less vibration than the other one I used, and it appears to be pretty smooth.  Unfortunately, I didnt have the scope polar aligned very well, but it seemed to track in RA pretty well.  I'm not seeing any vibration blur, and I havent even attempted any vibration dampening tricks, so I think I have a winner.

I took a couple of Saturn images.  Seeing was about a 5 and transparency about a 3-4, so the conditions werent near as good as on the 14th.  It was clear enough however to test the drive, which was my plan.

Here is what I took.  One image I used the camera zoom, and used it to an extreme.  I think if seeing was better, I would have had much better images.  Weather is hot and humid, and even after sundown, it hasnt appeared to have cooled much.

This is the image which I used the camera zoom.

I was not able to get the Storm in any of these images, either because of seeing, or possibly the transparency, or perhaps I might not have had the focus as good as the other night.  It looked good on the screen, the rings seemed pretty sharp.  I'm thinking it was because of the conditions actually.

The clock seemed to work very well, it is geared down substantially, which may help with any vibration issues, but this motor has far less vibration than the one I had been using.

Focusing tip

I was imaging the moon last night, and I came across a neat little trick, maybe you guys know this, maybe not.  As you know, I'm using an f5.5, 127mm refractor.  The focusing is quite critical with such a fast lens.

When I image the moon, I use an el-cheapo Meade 2X barlow.

What I did last night to get an almost perfect focus was to focus as best I could normally.  then I de-focused just a wee bit on the inward side.  I then loosened the camera to barlow screw and slid the camera out of the barlow very carefully, and I was able to get a much finer focus.  The barlow acts something of a "vernier", making the focus a little less touchy.

a useful tip for us guys using fast scopes......which kinda makes sense, as a barlow actually increases the focal length by a factor of X, which would increase the acceptable focus adjustment by a factor of X.

I've done that trick on the 70mm which is a bit slower too.  Also, as you slide the camera out of the barlow, you get a little bit more magnification.  

Quickcam 4000 First Light

Well, it came today from ebay.  Picked up the quickcam 4000, removed the lens and took it outside to have a look at the moon.  The images were so sharp and detailed, once I had figured out all of the settings, and there are a lot more than what I was used to with the newer cameras.  What is nice is that you can adjust the shutter speed independent of the frame rate.  I'm beginning to understand why the older cameras were so popular.

This camera is a CCD, whereas all of my other ones are cmos.  I'm going to have to get another one of these, for sure!  I want to do the lx mod on one of them if I can get a 2nd one.  This camera makes an incredible planetary and lunar cam.  Here are a few of the images I have taken with it.:

Appenine Mts

Clavius

Plato and the Alpine Valley

The Straight Wall

As you can see, the detail is so much better with this camera, I was amazed at what I was seeing on the screen!

While I was at it, I thought I'd shoot a video of Saturn, being the moon pics were so detailed, so here's what I got:
\

Ok, now for the complete story.  The sky was filled with thin clouds, transparency was not very good.  Seeing appeared good to average.  I took the saturn image too dark, and had to boost the light level to stack it.  It is not as good as it could be.  The camera will take some getting used to before I get everything correct.  Even though the conditions werent too good, this is one of my best images of Saturn so far.

Rain, Rain, Cloudy, Rain

For 2 weeks almost now it has been cloudy and raining here in Northeast Ohio.  I have a newtonian that I wish to collimate, and still wish to do some photography with it as well as with the 127mm.  Last month, we got over 6 inches of rain, when we average about 3 1/2 inches for April.

I have also been thinking about building a larger mount.  Being the 127mm is homebuilt, I thought it fitting to build the mount as well.  If I can figure one out, using wood and common steel without the need for a metal turning lathe, I may go ahead with a longer focus refractor.  The reason I went with the short focus refractor is because I didnt think that my current mount would hold a larger scope.  The 114mm Newtonian is almost too big for the mount I currently have. Therefore, if I can build a mount that the 114mm fits comfortably, perhaps I'll build a 127mm X 1200mm focal length scope.  I figure a scope of that size would provide good planetary views.

There are some good wood based equatorial mounts online.  I would probably base what I would build around one of them, but with some modification.  One thing I would like to do is use some ball bearings in the mount to allow it to operate smoothly.  The hardest part however would be rigging up a clock drive to whatever I decide to build.

Perhaps I'd be better off buying a CG5 class of mount.

Dew Heater & the Clouds

Went out and found a clear sky, so I packed up the telescope and set it up for another Saturn shot.  This time, I swapped the scopes on the mount and attached the 70mm to the mount.  Finished the dew heater tonight, and built some cradles for the 2 refractors over the weekend. to make it easier to swap scopes.

The stuff worked perfectly, the dew heater is warming things up nicely, possibly too nicely.  I'm going to have to build some kinda controller, which wont be too difficult.  I powered the heater directly off of a 12V battery, and it was getting much too warm.

Anyway, with it all set up, I found Saturn, inserted the barlow, and did some fine focusing, and just as I was ready to shoot, Saturn disappeared from the screen.  Looked up and a massive wall of clouds moved in from the west.  This has happened to me more than I can count.  It has been raining continuously for the last week with the exception of one evening, and when I saw stars tonight, I got my hopes up for some nice Saturn photos.  If I had another 15 minutes, I would have pictures here instead of me sitting here rambling and complaining about the weather....

Oh well, such is life in Northeast Ohio!

New Infrared Blocking Filter

Received an infrared blocking filter on Friday, and waited for the first clear day to try it out.  I really wanted to try photographing the moon, but being it is waning, it rises too late now.  Saturn has always been difficult for me, so I figured I'd try Saturn again with the filter.

The transparency was bad, but the planet was visible.  I couldnt detect too much variation with the seeing.  As always, the haze illuminated the area around the planet, and as you can see from the various images the rings are not very well defined.  However, take a peek at the body of the planet.  It seems there is much more contrast with the IR block filter installed in the camera.

This is the result of the stacking (198 frames).

After some green removal in photoshop, then some wavelet sharpening, and the elimination of the gray background in iris, this is what I came up with.

I  then thought about splitting the RGB by saving the image as a .fit, loading each in Gimp and converting each to a jpg.  The results of the 3 monochrome images representing each of the colors is presented here:

This is the red channel

This is the green channel

This is the blue channel

Notice how dark the NEB appears in each of these images.  I dont think I have ever resolved the NEB to this extent without the filter.  It will be interesting as to the effect of the filter on the moon and other planets when I'm able to photograph them.

Really Bad Conditions

Well, I was able to confirm that much of my problems with Saturn have been really bad conditions.  I bought another webcam today, a low cost unit at walmart.  Because of the fuzzy photos I was getting this past month, I was starting to think I had a problem with the camera.  I dont think that was the cause tonight, as the transparency was somewhat better this evening.  Although tonight's images werent that great, partially because for some reason, when I use the barlow, I seem to lose the image and sometimes I cant find it again, as was the case tonight.  Anyway, tonight's images didnt have that fuzz around the object, like there has been in previous images.  I believe the problem has been haze or thin cloud cover while trying to image.  Here is what I got this evening:

These images are all resized 2X in Registax 6, and you can see theyre quite small with varying degrees of focus.  It is a rather humid evening, with dew forming on the lens after about an hour of viewing.  I believe the images were taken before the dew had formed.  I used both cameras, and in all honesty, I could not tell a whole lot of difference in the images I had got from each camera.  This tells me that the camera I had been using is still functioning normally.  I would have been able to get better detail had I been able to use the barlow.

The gear-reduced clock appears to be working decent, and I still am not seeing as much motion blur as I have.

The new camera I'm going to try out on the moon the next time it is out.  It appears to have less vignetting than the cam I have been using.  The only real test though will be on the moon itself, so we'll see how it does.  The new cam does not have digital zoom, so I'm hoping it has a flatter field, because I will not be able to zoom in on the bright area if it varies much.

For grins, I thought I would put up a monochrome of a red channel image from the new camera.  This is resized 2X, and processed in Registax 5/

Analysis of Recent Photos

Ever since I built the clock drive (and the 127mm refractor), I have noticed a lack of quality in my images.  I had assumed I would get better resolution while using the clock drive, being able to eliminate the slight motion blur as the object moved across the field.  I found the images worse than before I began using it.  I therefore have to conclude that the problem is in the clock drive.  Because the camera magnifies the images so much greater than a regular eyepiece, I have to conclude that any minute amount of vibration and/or stepper motor resolution is causing a problem.

The way I see it, after looking at the last 2 Saturn images in my last post, I have concluded that the problem is caused by stepper motor vibration as well as the resolution.  Therefore, this is what I plan to do to resolve the problem.  First, I'm going to mount the motor itself on rubber shock mounting grommets, as well as possibly adding some mass to the base of the mount.  These two things should reduce the vibration substantially.

The second modification I want to consider is gearing down my stepper motor even further.  I have several stepper motors in my collection.  I will take a look first to see if they all have 7.5 degree step rotation.  If so, I am going to gear down what I have at least 10:1 more than I already have.  I figure that will clean things up substantially.  This will require me to make a whole new motor mount for the clock drive.  The next time I image, I will not use the clock drive, unless I do some low magnification lunar stuff.  This problem seems to manifest itself worse when using high magnifications.  Because Saturn is so difficult anyway, I feel I would get better images if I let it crawl across the field and manually reset.

Therefore, I will first mount the motor on the grommets and see what effect that has.  Then if necessary, which probably will be, I will redesign the motor drive to gear it down at least 10:1 slower than it currently is now.  Stay tuned, I will, of course report on my progress.

Experiences With 127mm Refractor

As promised yesterday, I'm going to tell you a little about my experience with the 127mm homebrew refractor.  The first item I went to look at was a semi-bright star.  Not certain which one, I think it was one of the belt stars in Orion.  As I recall, it was a yellowish star.  I noticed right away that if the star was focused in the center of the eyepiece, as it drifted, it got progressively blurrier as it went off center.

Then I went after M42, as its easy to find and I was in the neighborhood anyway.  It was quite bright, compared to the 70mm and 114mm scopes I have.  Of course, M42 is much brighter in the 8 inch Dob, which is to be expected.  A quick peek at Sirius showed a blue star, pinpoint and bright  when focused.  From there, I attempted M51, Canes Venatici, but couldnt locate it.    After spending some time searching, I proceeded to Saturn which was higher in the sky.  There was thin cloud cover, more like a haze, the moon, low on the horizon illuminated the haze, and could be why I was unable to locate M51.

The home made focuser has no side to side slop that I could see.  However, it was not square with the tube, which I corrected today.  This is probably the cause of the focusing issue I was seeing.  I was not able to focus on Saturn as well as I have experienced with the 70mm refractor, but at the time I attributed it to the hazy sky.

Knowing that the telescope needed some more work and some fine tuning, I brought it back in after looking at Saturn.  Today, I re-seated the objective and squared up the focuser as best I could.  I used a laser flashlight and found the laser was off to one side of the objective.  I rotated the laser to make sure it was aiming straight, which it wasnt, but as I rotated it in the eyepiece holder, I saw the dot on the lens, rotate in a circle.  I then adjusted the focuser so that the circle was centered approximately equal from the outer rim of the objective as I rotated it around inside the holder. (the laser flashlight fit fairly well in the 1 1/4 inch focuser with very little slop).  I believe I have the focuser much closer to being true.

Now we need clear skies again to test the scope again.

Home Made Refractor

The major parts are done, I didnt do any baffling inside yet, but thats not a problem, it all comes apart with screws and I will be adding baffles.  The telescope has all the essentials - objective, focuser, eyepiece, its all there.  I looked at some trees across the street and it displayed a bright, very sharp image.  Of course it clouded up as I was taking these pictures of the semi-finished telescope.

Thats the balance point, right behind the objective cell.

If you look at the focuser, you will see it is home made from pvc water pipe.  It is epoxied onto the end plate, and appears to work like a charm.  Of course I wont know how good it is until I get the barlow and camera on it and try to photograph Saturn.  :)