Collimation cap for 127 Mak

Posted on October 15, 2013 by james

I was asked about my collimation cap recently, having referred to it a couple of times. It’s really very basic, but I just happened to find that it fitted over the rear thread of the baffle tube on my Mak rather nicely, so I drilled a small hole in the middle and used it for initial collimation of the scope and checking that the baffle tube was central. Here it is:

colli-cap1

I fact the hole is probably too large. I reckon it could easily be taken down to 1mm diameter. I shan’t be looking for another however as I recently found a 1.25″ Astro Engineering plug, which reveals something quite useful when the sticky plastic logo is levered off:

colli-cap2

colli-cap3

The hole isn’t quite as small as I wanted, but the depth of the plug should make up for that.

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Frog Rescue

Posted on October 15, 2013 by james

These tiny little chaps appear to be all over the place in our garden. I assume they’ve left one of the nearby ponds and are looking for new homes. We’ve had to rescue quite a few from the patio to avoid them being trodden on or attacked by birds.

a

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M13 Reloaded

Posted on October 15, 2013 by james

It’s taken me a while to get used to all the new software for controlling my HEQ5, the new imaging applications, filter wheel control and so on, but here’s my first attempt at an RGB image of M13 using the 314L+ and 127 Mak. I think it’s fair to say that it blows my DSLR images into the weeds…

m13-01

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Solar prominences

Posted on October 15, 2013 by james

A revisit of one of my earlier images, but enhanced to show the prominences. In some ways they don’t look like much, until you consider that they dwarf our entire planet.

ha-proms-2013-07-09

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A final image of Saturn

Posted on October 15, 2013 by james

My last image of Saturn for this apparition. I’ve not done one for some time, but it just happened to be in a convenient place for imaging and I didn’t particularly have any other plans this night, so thought I’d give it one last try. This with the 127 Mak and ASI120MC on the HEQ5.

saturn-2013-07-08-02

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Messier Globulars revisited

Posted on October 15, 2013 by james

Having moved to a new mount I thought I’d have a try with a new camera as well. Ok, so not quite a new camera. I’ve had it for a while because I picked it up at a discount when it happened to be available. So, here are some mono attempts at Messiers 13, 92 and 3 with my Atik 314L+. Even though they have no colour and the focus isn’t quite there the difference between them and the DSLR is quite significant. I’m looking forward to working with this camera more.

m13-mono

m92

m3-mono

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More experiments in solar Ha

Posted on October 15, 2013 by james

Another couple of tries with the PST, taken in France on holiday. These ones I’ve managed to do as mosaics and add false colour. I’m still not very happy with them. A good deal of practice is going to be required I think.

ha-sun-2013-07-07-small

ha-sun-2013-07-09-small

On the positive side it’s very nice to see the proms, even if they don’t do the view through the eyepiece justice.

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Retiring the EQ3-2

Posted on October 15, 2013 by james

Having come to the conclusion that the EQ3-2 just wasn’t up to the demands I was making of it, I’ve finally bitten the bullet and bought a HEQ5 Pro. I’m hopeful this will allow me to make more progress with my imaging.

It’s already pressed into service, here with the PST on board:

IMG_0046

IMG_0045

The EQ3-2 won’t be gone forever, but I’m planning on stripping it down and possibly doing an AstroEQ conversion to allow it to be used as an imaging platform for lighter weight telescopes or just cameras and lenses.

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My first Hydrogen Alpha image

Posted on October 15, 2013 by james

Having spent all this time modding my PST I really needed to do some imaging with it, so here’s my first attempt at a solar Ha image. It’s not brilliant, I’ll grant you, but it’s mine. I’m still experimenting with the camera settings for my ASI120MM. There’s still plenty of work to do here.

ha-sun-2013-06-26-02

Unfortunately the sensor on the ASI120 is not quite big enough to fit the entire target in. I’m going to have to resort to mosiacs (or buy a DMK41, the expense of which fills me with horror).

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PST imaging adaptor

Posted on October 15, 2013 by james

To avoid the use of a diagonal I turned up an adaptor from a piece of aluminium that takes the PST eyepiece unit and allows a camera to reach focus without a diagonal, so there’s nothing else in the light path. I shall use this for my imaging, though I’ll revert to the diagonal for visual. I’ve been fortunate enough to obtain a second eyepiece unit, so I don’t have to keep swapping them over. Here’s the adaptor:

adaptor

And here’s how it looks in place on my modded PST:

adaptor-fitted

I continued the thread for the eyepiece unit all the way down the inside to try to prevent reflections reaching the camera. Now I shall paint it black using heat-resistant barbecue paint.

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