Posts Made By: Rick Krejci

Finally finished processing my M33 image taken the same night as the M45 recently posted. It's about 1 hours worth of exposures at ISO800 using the Tak Epsilon 160. For details, see the web page here:

http://www.ricksastro.com/Gallery/htm/10D_m33.htm

Rick Krejci

Was able to get some scope time last night with the SXV-H9 to capture
the Sculptor Galaxy...I've not tried this one before since it's
pretty darned low in the sky. I was pleasantly surprised at how
interesting it is...

As usual, no dark frames needed. It was cold anough last night
(about 40F ambient) that I did't even need do use any hot pixel
removal at all. I detected only a single hot pixel, and it was
barely noticeable.

For the full resolution version as well as the imaging details, see the page below:

http://www.ricksastro.com/Gallery/htm/SXV_n253.htm

Comments welcome.

Rick Krejci

I decided to put the deep capability of the 10D to a tough test...the Which Head Nebula (IC2118). I took about 74 minutes of exposures with the Canon 10D at ISO800 through the f/3.3 Tak Epsilon 160. See my web page for details and higher resolution images:
http://www.ricksastro.com/Gallery/htm/10D_witch.htm

Rick Krejci

I tested out my new scope, the Tak CN212 newt/cassegrain convertible
last night to see of it can handle the wide frame of the 10D...I did
get some coma in the corners, but it wasn't too bad...To be able to
image at f3.9 (Newtonian focus with coma corrector)is a great luxury!

I took almost 100 minutes using various ISO's in 5 minute
exposures. I used the LPS filter as well.

Anyway, here's my result (see full details here:

http://www.ricksastro.com/Gallery/htm/10D_M42.htm
)
Comments/suggestions welcomed!

Rick Krejci

I put together an Ha mosaic of one of my favorite areas of the sky...the Rosette Nebula. I did a 2x2 mosaic with my Epsilon160 and SXV-H9...details and some very high resolution versions can be seen here:
http://www.ricksastro.com/Gallery/htm/SXV_rose_mos_e160.htm

Comments/suggestions welcomed...

Rick Krejci

With the incredibly clear (and rare!) weather here in MI, I was able to get 80 minutes worth of color (RGB & Ha) to add to my 2 hour luminance of M51.

More detail (and full res image) here:
http://www.ricksastro.com/DSOs/m51rgb_st2k.shtml

Rick Krejci

That is, if it's not cloudy...

I've been looking for a good Software package for planning an evening's
observation or Astrophotography session. The planetarium programs are nice,
but they mainly show either just a few objects, or hundreds and it's tedius
to sift through all of them to find that gem. There are a few websites, but
they are often grouped by month or season which may not be relevant to you
at your location or your late, late session.

I wrote a program a while back and I decided to make it a product to fill
in this niche. It provides a list of over 300 interesting object
(derived from Doc G's great list with his permission) and will show the
user which objects will be in a user determined portion of the sky for
their entire session, or whatever time period is desired.

I live in an area where I have a light dome and trees all to the east and
trees up to about 40 degrees elevation. I can enter these parameters and,
if I want to allow 2 hours to image an object (and avoid the dreaded
meridian flip), it will tell me which objects I can image within those
guidelines. The list contains a large number of objects (large,small,
bright, dim) which are fairly seldom imaged, so it's a great way to expand
you horizons. If you see a cool image from someone on the 'net, you can get
the information for it and add it to your list so when it comes around,
you'll know it! Users can create and share customized lists for whatever
specialty they wish.

Once you have a list of objects that meet your criteria, you can save the
list and load it with a word processor or Excel for further manipulation and
printing. If you are unfamiliar with an object, just double click on it and
it will bring up Google's Images search for that object.


To cut to the chase, I have created WhatsUp, an Astronomy planning tool.
You can dowload a free demo version (which doesn't allow saving of default
values) or purchase the full version. For full details, please see the
WhatsUp web site at:

http://www.whatsup.ricksastro.com/index.htm


Thanks for your time...I hope you enjoy the program.

Rick Krejci

Sorry if you guys saw this on another forum...

My quest for a high quality 10" f/5 Newtonian has ended with a great scope from Dale at DBA Astronomy. They sell "Certified" Newtonians with upgraded components, and I am now a believer...it's a real winner.

Here's my first light with the Newt on the Tak NJP with an MPCC coma corrector and an SXV-H9:

Full resolution and details here:
http://www.ricksastro.com/DSOs/M51_DSO.shtml

Seeing was great for Michigan...My FWHM's were in the low 2's (arcsec), with some frames dipping below 2 arcseconds...a first for me!

With the MPCC, I can easily cover my Canon DSLR chip with sharp stars to the corners...more fun to come!

Rick Krejci

I wanted to test the limits of my new DBA Certified 10" Newt as far as resolution goes, so I gave the Cat's Eye nebula (NGC6543) a try. Since the moon was very bright, I know I wanted to try narrow band imaging. I looked around, and it seems it is dominated by Ha and OIII, so that's what I tried (Ha as R, OIII as GB)

I wanted to capture the core and the dim outer edges in the same exposure (not one set of long and one short), which drove me to take very short subexposures, particularly for narrowband. But, hey, I have an SXVH9!!! Using the CCDWare subexposure calculator and measured background levels, I figure my read noise was about 25% of Sky noise rather than the recommended 5-10%...oh well.

Being circumpolar, I could get a lot of up-time on it. Astro twilight is about 11pm (I hate daylight savings time), which is when I started imaging. I let it run for an hour and then went to bed and set my alarm for 3am...happily, everything went well!

The dim shell took a lot of processing to get it reasonable, but I was very surprised to see a good amount of detail...Ha is definitely way different than OIII. Ha seems to be at the outer fronts more.

To get as much detail as possible in the inner portion, I enlarged the images by 300% and then combined them. I had a HUGE amount of signal there, since the core was at the upper end of the histogram for each exposure and I had 136 of them!. The stacked image took deconvolution vey well, and I was left with some pretty small and subtle details. I did the traditional "paste the dimmed core into the processed shell" technique and liked the result. The large cross in the middle is the diffraction spikes for the nebula iteself.

http://www.ricksastro.com/DSOs/NGC6543wide.shtml

Rick Krejci

I've been exploring Draco the last week and found some really cool galaxy groupings I'd not noticed much before...Lot's of fun!

I'm still lovin' my new setup (NJP, DSO Newt, SXVH9)...it's doing the work for me!!!

Full details and resolution on the first image here:
http://www.ricksastro.com/DSOs/ngc5985-81-82.shtml

Rick