Posts Made By: Taylor Chonis

Hello,

I have some questions about eyepieces for my LX200GPS. I have an 8"F-10, and I am about ready to buy a William Optics 2" diagnal. I just sold all but 2 of my Meade Series 4000 Super Plossls, so I am ready to go and buy some quality eyepieces.

I was thinking about the 27mm Panoptic, a 16mm Nagler type 5, and a 2x powermate. In addition to these, I have decided to keep the 26mm and 9.7mm Meade Super Plossls for use when inexperienced viewers look through the scope. In looking at the Televues that I am preparing to buy, does it look like I am covering a wide enough range of fields of view and magnifications? Can anyone comment on the 27 Pan, 16 Nagler T5, or 2x powermate in use with an 8" F-10?

Will I need to buy the Barlow Interface for the 27 Pan when used with the Powermate?

Comments on the individual eyepices or other eyepieces I should consiter would be appreicated.

Thanks,
Taylor Chonis

Hi,

I currently own a Meade LX200GPS 8" f-10. It is totally tricked out and has everything I need for astrophotography as well as visual. However, I am really getting tired of my GOTO. I Dont use it anymore, and the LX200 takes so long to align and everything. I am looking to make a change so as to reduce my setup time, and have a better quality mount.

Heres me plan:
I am wanting to sell my LX200GPS fork mount, along with the Meade Superwedge. I will keep my Meade Tripod, as well as my Meade 8" OTA. Hopefully, I will find a Losmandy G11 head in decent condition with 1 21 lb. counterweight and dual axis motors. I will buy the Losmandy Mount to MEade Field Tripod adapter, and a dovetail to attatch to the bottom of my OTA. and just like that, my fork mounted LX200 will be coverted to a GEM mounted 8"SCT!

Has anyone tried this? I am really a big fan of GEMs, so the G11 is looking like a good option. The only problem is that I am a college student, and funds are short. How much does a typical G11 head go for on astromart? I havent seen any lately, so I wouldnt know. Any help with this situation would be appreciated! Thanks!

Taylor

Hello,

I have been shooting on Kodak E200 for the past year or two. I just made a trip to Walmart to buy more, and I was surprised to see that it was not on the shelf! Kodak didnt discontinue this film did they? If they did, I wouldnt be surprised. I am finding it hard to find camera stores that will even develop slide film anymore. Anyways, the only other film decent for astrophotography that is readily available in most stores is a print film by fuji i think. Is there anything else out there that is good to use?

Thanks,
Taylor

Hey all.

The attatched image is one that I took back in August at the Land of Oz Observatory in La Cygne, Kansas. It is M8 and is a composition of two 30 minute exposures, and one 15 minute exposure on Kodak E200 film. The images were taken through an 8" LX200GPS working at f-6.3. All guiding was done manually through a piggy-backed Stellarvue Nighthawk and a barlow lens in front of the diagonal (so it was working at an effective FL of 1440mm). The three images were registered and stcked using Registar, and the final processing was done using Adobe Photoshop 7.0. This is one of the nicest images I have produced. Its too bad though that it takes so long to process. Its hard for me to find the time to spend to do it correctly. Being a college student, time is a limited commodity, as many of you probably know. Hope you all enjoy. Comments and suggestions would be appreciated.

Clear Skies,
Taylor Chonis

Hello,

I have never posted in this forum before. I am a college student at the university of nebraska and have recently become interested in building my own telescope. I own a Meade 8" Lx200gps and it is decked out for astrophotography, but I have recently began finding objects with out GOTO. I have used a couple of the big truss tube dobs and i think i would like one for my visual endeavors.

I was thinking of maybe a 12 inch f5 scope would be good. I may even be able to go to a 10. I am a big fan of the truss tube design. But Im not exactly sure how to construct it so that it is easy to take down and set up or where to get decent mirrors at for a good price. Also, what math do i need to do to determine howfar away the secondary needs to be and all that stuff? Also, typically how much money should i be expecting to spend on a 10 or 12 inch scope? If anyone can help with any of these things, i would appreciate it. If you have a pic of your homemade truss design, please post it if you would like to share your idea. I appreciate your help.

Taylor

Hello. I am a an avid film astrophotographer, so I have a few questions about CCD image processing. I am a sophomore Physics and Astronomy major at the University of Nebraska, and I work for one of our department research teams gathering data for the photometry of Active Galactic Nuclei using our 16" Meade LX200 and an SBIG ST-7 camera. The data we need for our research only is concerned with the raw data, so we dont do much image processing. However, with my interest in amatuer astronomy and astrophotography, naturally I would like to process our images to make them look pretty and such (I also have theopportunity to use the telescope to image obhects of interest to me). I dont have time to image with the color filter wheel, so I am concerned here only with processing B&W images. Attatched is a 10 minute exposure of one of my favorite objects we study, NGC 4051. This image is raw. I would like to know what steps I need to take in order to clean this image up and make it look decent. I know I need to have sky flats and darks, which I have access to, but how do I utilize this. Since I am unfamiliar with CCD image processing, I have no clue how to do this. I have access to CCDOPS, CCDSoft, and Adobe Photoshop on my own computer. Also, I plan on stacking more images than just this one. Do I need to process each individual image before stacking, or can I stack raws and process the result? Anyhow, I guess all I am asking of the experienced CCD imagers here, is what are the basic steps you take to process a monochromatic image. Sorry, but this image has some stuff superimposed on it such as an identifiable marker for the galaxy and the magnitudes of reference stars. But anyhow, this is an example of one of our raw images. Thanks alot, I greatly apprciate it.

So newby at CCD image processing here. Alright, so I have Dark subtracted and flat fielded, but my image looks very very messy still. There is tons of noise. Is this normal? What do I need to do to get rid of this and make the sky in the background of the galaxy look fairly normal? Thanks.

NOTE: I am only concerned with B&W imaging here, so I am not worried about RGB or an of that. The image of NGC 4051 is attatched. Thanks.

Hello. I have yet to post any images of mine of Mars for this opposition, so here's my little addition. Unfortunately, my equipment was limited this time around. I wasnt able to image on my personal equipment due to my going to college out of state. This image was taken using the University of Nebraska's 16"LX200GPS and a Philips ToUcam Pro II at about 4:00 AM on Monday morning after my research observing was finished. Unfortunately, this had to be shot through a .63 focal reducer and a flip mirror system (it was too big of a pain in the butt to take off the CCD camera), so the FL it was shot at is 2460 mm. No Barlow was used. I am actually rather impressed with this image due to the amount of extra glass that was in the way and the low f-ratio used. Any how, stack of about 700 frames with Registax 3. Thanks.

Clear Skies,
Taylor Chonis

Here is a mosaic of the moon I did the other night. Moon was 5.4 days old. 9 Image composite made in Photoshop using NASA's Fits Plugin. I took this while waiting for it to get totally dark after taking my flat field frames before doing AGN research with a 16" LX200GPS and SBIG ST-7 CCD camera at the University of Nebraska Lincoln's Student Observatory. Scope was working at f/6 and CCD was only cooled to -1.0 degree C at the time. Images taken on 6-1-06 at about 9 PM. All images exposed for only .1 sec. Let me know what you think or if you have any sugestions.

Clear Skies,
Taylor Chonis

So I have never built a telescope before, but I have a mirror cell and a 12.5" blank sitting here. I am getting ready to grind the mirror and have an elaborate set of plans in my head for how to make this scope work. I am designing a 4 pole truss dob, and my main question before making any drawings, is how much larger should the inside diameter of my tube be than the mirror? I am straying away from the typical "mirror box" and am going to design a circular primary mirror assembly. Is there any rule on how large the scope tube ID should be? Or does this depend mainly on where the secondary puts the focal point at so one can know where to place the focuser. Any help or advice for a first timer would be appreciated. Thanks.