Posts Made By: Ralph Encarnacion

Well since it has been cloudy the last few days , I have been playing with my previous Mars images. I did an interesting experiment the other day and today I finished all the processing. What I did was I set up my C-8 scope and took pictures of Mars within minutes of each other with the two best cameras made for planets. One camera is the Toucam Pro webcam and the other camera is the Olympus C-2100UZ. You can see my comparison at the bottom. As you can see the Toucam did a lot better job than the UZ. Just to make it interesting, I went ahead and combined the best of the Toucam and the best of the UZ. The bottom picture is a stack of the Toucam and the UZ.
Ralph

I found another Mars simulator. This is the best one yet! It's called the Wes Higgins Simulator. Here is an sample. The image on the left is the one I took, the image on the right is the one Wes took. Yes I know, my image has a long way to go before it gets to look like the Wes Higgins Simulator image, but I am trying. Way to go Wes on out doing all the other Mars simulators.
Ralph

I finally got a half way decent shot with my digital camera, an Olympus C2100UZ. 93 images stacked from a C-8 and Williams Optics DCL-28. Not in the same leage as the webcam shots, but it is my best with a regular digital camera.
Ralph

Here is a shot I took of M31 with my Televue-85 and a Canon 10D.
Ralph

After a couple of years in this hobby, and spending a crap load of money trying to get decent pictures with as inexpensive equipment, I have finally got a setup that actually works half way decent. My setup now consist of a Televue-85 and a Celestron C-8. I mount either one on a Vixen GP/DX, driven with a Skysensor 2000PC controller. I autoguide it with a ST-237A mounted on a home made E-Finder and the camera I use is a Canon 10D. I wish I would have started with a quality gem mount a couple of years ago, I would have saved a lot of time and money. For processing I use Images Plus, Photoshop, and Neat Image. For focusing, I use DSLR Focus. I have been too busy taking pictures with my setup and not enough time stacking and processing. I take lots of pictures, but usually just end up processing just a single image just to get an idea of what the final one will come out after I stack. Here is a small sample of what I have been shooting: http://www.pbase.com/image/21834845 They are all single images taken with the above setup. One of these days I am going to find the time to subtract darks and stack them all to see what I can get, but for now, the camera is doing an excellent job with just single images. When ever I get around to stacking and processing I will put up the finals, but right now I am having way to much fun.
Ralph

Those guys with the high dollar equipment still need to learn how to use all that equipment and how to process all those images to get them published in a magazine. There are plenty of people that have all that high dollar equipment, but few people that get their pictures in a magazine. All that high dollar stuff is not a guarantee that you will take world class pictures. You still have to learn your craft and it is not easy, even if you do spend the big bucks. If I was lucky enough to have an AP mount and RC scope and the biggest Sbig CCD made, I still would take a lousy picture. One of you rich guys send me all that stuff and I'll prove it to you;-)
Ralph

It's been cloudy and foggy here so I decided to take a shot of my new modified green laser. I took this shot this morning through some fog, so it looks like the laser is burning a hole in the clouds.
Ralph

I finally got some half way decent seeing last night and took this Saturn image from Austin Texas with a Ultima 11" SCT. Toucam Pro, 2X barlow, 588 frames stacked in Registax.
Ralph

Here is another shot of Saturn with my Ultima 11" SCT
Ralph

Here is one from a few days ago with the above combo.
Ralph