Posts Made By: Andrew Riehl

thanks all. Hopefully it won't be a couple of months before I get to image again...

yes, but imagine getting the thing through security--looks alot like an anti-tank missile...

my guess would be about 3 years Ol'

m31 and m81 are tough galaxies--they have very bright cores and extremely dim outer regions. The key to viewing both is to use non-linear histogram adjustments and perhaps even some layer masking. Looks like you have a nasty lower right to upper left gradient and some vertical bands. Is the image dark/flat corrected? This usually takes care of most of the banding. Also, the gradient should be removed before making your histogram adjustments on the galaxy. More exposures NEVER hurts. My $0.02

if your main goal is planetary imaging, I'd suggest something else, most likely the video route. Personally I would avoid one shot color cameras at all costs. the monochrome sxv9 is not a bad camera, but there are better values out there I believe...This is an excerpt from an email I wrote to a buddy of mine who was comparing starlight express cameras to my st-2000xm...

if i'm going for nice images, I want proper dark frame calibration. SX claims 5 times less dark current than kaf series chips (st-7/8) which equals about maybe half that of the st-2k (which has lower dark current than the KAF chips) . Even if the dark current is half of what the st-2k has, over a long exposure time, that's a lot. The SX star-2000 self guiding routine is IMHO a piece of junk that doubles exposure times. Using a seperate guiding camera is also not a good option most times (see http://www.sbig.com/sbwhtmls/why%20self%20guiding%20article.htm)

their new camera with the largest FOV yields a whopping 1392x1040 array with pixels 15% smaller than the st-2k. The chip dimensions are 8.9x6.7mm compared to 11.8x8.9mm for the st-2k. Of course, the st-2k is one of the 'smaller' sbig cams. This is also taken from the SX promo for this new camera (sxv-9)of theirs:

what you don't get!
NO problems finding and tracking guide stars through dense colour filters with the external guider! --Like I said before, I wouldn't really want an external guider, and also, I haven't seen any integrated color filter wheels for the SX cam...

NO third party guide cameras needed! --with self guiding, you don't need one anyway. I guess they're referring to the external guide camera they're selling for it. I guess an external guide camera is ok, if it's made by the same company? will their guide camera work with say a film camera?

NO fans, water pipes, pumps, buckets or mess! --if you don't want to use the fan on the st2k, you can turn it off. At least I have the option if I want it. I can water cool the st2k as well if I like. A 90 degree summer night makes this an option I may definately take advantage of sometime. Even without the the fan and liquid cooling, I'll out-cool the SX, and I can pick the exact same temperature everytime so I don't need to take new darks.

change. Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro on canon 10d. reduced in size of course...

TapCons...Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro on canon 10d. a little soft, but I then again I was shooting at f/38 I believe to get the depth of field I wanted--not the lens's fault...

breakfast of champions...
Sigma 15mm f/2.8 Diagonal Fisheye on Canon 10d. lots of fun to be had with this lens...

Samoyed...
Sigma 15mm f/2.8 Diagonal Fisheye on canon 10d