Posts Made By: Mark Keitel

Jeff,

Excellent image, missed seeing your posts over the past several months. Though all I have seen on here mainly are images of Mars. I am starting to have nightmares of Matians coming and taking my scope away. Enough of that though
Great image, been thinking of imaging this one myself and hope it comes out as nice as yours did

Mark

Gary,

It sounds to me that you have a great night with an almost full moon out. Nothing wrong with viewing when the Moon is lighting up the sky, and even traveling to a remote location will not make it any darker with the Moon lighting up the sky and washing out even the brightest of the DSO.
Personally I do not even bother looking at anything other than the Moon, or Planets when the Moon is out. Or I image using an HA filter. That would be it. And I still do not expect much from my visual time.
Remember that it takes training of your eyes to reach the full potential of a scope. I can remember when my wife started to view with me and she would not see as much detail on DSO as I would be able to. Now when we have company over to view she explains to them why they are going to see an image that looks like you took baby powder and got some on a black shirt and you tried to wipe it off. They view and say yes that is what I see. Though her and I can see more detail than that and even on Globs we can view to the core, where first time viewers can not, and it is also due to the fact that their eyes are not trained to dialate as much as they could.
As far as color goes you can only get a glimpse of color on certain object but nothing like in the MANY hours it took to take the photos that you see in the books.

There is a reason why ALL star parties are done when there is no Moon in the sky. When one views the Moon your eye will close up since the object is so bright. Then you want it to dialate in order to view another object. Just does not work so well.

I would suggest that you view again when there is no Moon, and then make your conclusions at that point. If you still feel the same way then you have at least givin it a fare shot.

Just my opinion

Mark

Chris,

Looks gorgeous. Well worth getting woken up then, in order to be able to take this image

Mark

Brian,

Certain things you will have to consider though. The pier, will you be going all the way through the house to the ground and isolate it from the rest of the house? Since my observatory is only 30' above the ground ( less than you are thinking ) I can give you some ideas. Vibrations is a factor of course and since it will be part of the whole house I am guessing you will have to consider this since you will have people walking around while you are imagaing. So isolation will be a key factor I would think.

Next, another factor to consider is thermal dinamics of the house cooling at night too.

Mark

Victor,

Not sure how good a quality portable pier you really want
Here are more than likely the best two made out there to date. The Partical Wave one is about twice the price though of the other

Partical Wave http://www.pwtec.com
Advanced Telescope Systems

Remember though these are quality items and there is a price to pay for such

Mark

James,

Yes I used the onboard guidechip for this image. Guided through Maxim too. Guide chip was binned 2x @ 10 second intervals.

I would say that the 10 chip is still allot smaller than the 35mm film FOV

Mark

Ivan,

Sorry to hear it and you have to do what you have to do,
I thought that Monday 16th was a Holiday, so you get Monday off anyway. Then you have Sunday to set-up get your spot and view, Monday of course Holiday not work, then take Tuesday and Wed off this way you get more days and if you can push it to three days you have till Thursday?
This way if you can only take two days you will be there in the begining and for Sunday,Monday,Tuesday,Wed and still only take two days off

Just a thought

Mark

welding it together, this roof should withstand 150mph winds even though it is 31' in the air too

Chris,

Congrads on a very nice image

Mark

Did this one a couple of months ago
Here it is same camera but with the FSQ

Thank you

Mark