Posts Made By: David Landreth

[COLOR="Blue"][/COLOR]I just purchased a new Meade 24mm uwa.
i have the option to return in 30 days. i wont get my new Discovery 10" pdhq for around 2 to 3 weeks. has anyone out there had any experiences with this really nice looking and rather large eyepiece? it looks close to what my 31mm nagler looked like in size. any info would be greatly appreciated. thanks David Landreth

Can you use a Tv or a Williams optics field flattener/ focal reducer visually to correct field curvature while looking thru a eyepiece. not ccd I am curently using a new sv 80ed

I received a new Ioptron cube pro yesterday and was able to try it out with my new SV90T fpl53 Apo. My scope with clamshell, finder, 2" diagonal and 35mm Tv panoptic weighs in around 11.5# The published limit for the scope is 12#. Here is the scoop! I used it in less than ideal circumstances, it was windy around 15 to 25mph, but i had a decent wind break, my back yard fence. I extended the tripod legs to almost the maximum, mounted the 90t in the Vixen style dovetail holder with the one lock nut ( looks kind of scary) and then put the scope in the park position ( scope pointed up with the arrow on the mount pointed south) I turned on the mount and let the GPS do its work. The GPS locked in under 1 minute. I then did my 2 star alignment procedure and then told the mount to go to M42. In under 8 sconds the scope stopped in the vicinity of the nebula. I looked thru the eyepiece and the Orion nebula was not in the very center, very close. I then went to M82 and then back to M42 each time it was in the inner 2/3 portion of the eyepiece. By the way i was using a Celestron 26mm 50 degree silvertop at the time. I am happy with the mount overall. The only thing that i think would be a major improvement would be to use 1.5" tripod legs like the mini tower has, instead of the 1" legs that are used on the Cube Pro. The mount tracks very well. One negative is when switching from my 35mm Pan to something like the 26mm silver top it is pretty hard to tighten up the clutch brake enough to where the mount wont move and mess up the alignment when the weight difference in the eyepieces you might be using are so different. Thanks David

I have done ccd imaging and did enjoy it. Now I want to try DSLR imaging, but I am not sure what camera would be a good one right off the shelf for under $900.00. I want to go for deepsky, not so much for planets, bright stars or star clusters.
Any info on brands, models and what I can expect on a non modified DSLR would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks David
Odessa,TX

I am very new to DSLR imaging and am wanting to learn.

I have a unmodified Canon XS. I live in a area that has some pretty bad light pollution.

When taking exposures, if I hold my images to less than 1.5 minutes I get some fair results, anything more than 1.5 minutes I get nothing but a white/washed out picture.

Is this due to the light pollution as I stated is pretty bad where I live or am I doing something wrong?

I have done CCD imaging up to about 1.5 minutes in the past at the same place I live now with some pretty good results, it just seems that the DSLR is more prone to catching the surrounding polution.

Any advice will help.

Maybe I need to use a OIII or some other broad band type or narrow band filter?

Also I am using paint shop pro for image processing, I have used it befor with very good results, but I am having a lot of trouble with it now, I cant seem to get all the detail out of my images.

Thanks David
Odessa,TX

I have never used photoshop to process images before, and I am wondering if I went this route will photoshop elements work for what I am trying to do? Dose this software have all the bells and whistles that are needed to process a astro image?
Thanks David

I have a new SBIG ST-2000XM.

I had been doing some DSLR imaging and processing the images using Paintshop pro with some pretty good results and did not have any trouble with finding and processing my images.

Well I am having no luck finding my images using the ST-2000XM and using the Paintshop pro, when I finally do find them they are not a supported file?

What do I need to do, HELP!!

Any kind of info will help.

I have tried saving my images in a TIFF AND jpeg format with no results, and of course the SBIG format will not work with Paintshop

Where is the best place to buy Photoshop and what version will work best with deepsky images.
Any info will be helpful.

Thanks David
Odessa,TX

My first HA image with a DSLR T1I

I have never used Photo Shop and am thinking about buying the newest CS5, I have been told my computer might not handle it very well. I have a I3 processor, will this give me problems? I am currently using Astro Art 5.0 and doing ok with it, any advice would be greatly appreciated.
David Landreth
Odessa,TX