Posts Made By: Taylor Chonis

Just curious if any one could help lead me to a website that offers products that are good for automating an LX200GPS/SBIG CCD Camera system with an Ash dome. I am helping with the construction and equipment for my Univeristy's new observatory project and we are looking to automate an observing program for the photometry of Quasars and AGNs. Thanks alot.

M57 taken from Downtown Lincoln Nebraska in the courtyard of my fraternity house with my 8" LX200GPS and DSI Pro. RGB image 30 minutes per channel. Luminance 45 min exposure through Lumicon UHC filter. All processing done in Photoshop utilizing NASA Fits Liberator. Specific details can be found at http://www.angelfire.com/stars5/tschonis/astrophotos/M57.html .

Let me know what you think.

Taylor

Hi. Stupid question, but can someone look at this flat field image and tell me what these vertical columns of darker pixels are? Why are they on my camera? Flat fields do not normally look like this. These dark columns are also showing up on my images in the sky background. I am using a brand new STL 11000M. Ideas? Advice? Thanks.

Hello all. I am in the process of building my first truss telescope. I have the upper cage totally finished. I just need to attach my focuser and spider. Now I need to add a ligh baffle, the black plastic lining that goes around the inner diameter of the uppercage to block out light from the secondary. This material is used on almost all major brand truss scopes, and I think it even used to be sold by Astrosystems, but I dont really know where to find it or where in a hardware store to look for it. Can anyone tell me what it is called or where I can find it? Ive attached a photo of an obsession upper cage to clarify my description. Thanks!

Just wondering: I know the standard on dob Alt and Az bearings is to use a teflon on ebony star surface. What about teflon on Kydex? Anyone know how that works? I will end up having barely enough left over Kydex to make my alt bearings out of the scraps, so I am just wondering so that maybe I dont have to buy a whole sheet of Ebony star. Thanks.

Taylor

Hi all,

My Lx200gps isnt selling too well right now in the classifieds, so I was thinking about putting up an auction. I didnt want to use eBay because of the amount of scammers there. I think an auction would help sell it as I need to sell fairly quickly to fund a new mount for the new OTA I have.

Anyway, I have never posted an auction on A-mart before, and I couldnt find any terms or policies specifically for auctions. I was mainly wondering if these auctions work like eBay's do. Firstly does A-mart take a portion of the selling price like eBay does? And are the rules of the reserve price the same (i.e. if my reserve is not met, I am not obligated to sell the item)? And finally, can the $4 fee for a reserve auction be payed with paypal? Thanks! If theres anything else a first time auctioner should know, inform me. Thanks alot!

Taylor

Hello all,

I recently posted a image of M31 which I thought I did a good job on
in processing. I am now in the process of processing my most recent
work, which is IC1805, or the Heart Nebula. I am using a Takahashi
Epsilon 250, Paramount, and STL-11000M. For this image, I have 15
total hours of exposure: 7 hours of Ha (for luminance binned 2x2,
which yes I know was a mistake but I have to deal with it now), and
the rest devided evenly between RGB (also binned 2x2).

Now I have some questions about processing this image. I dont
consider this image finished by any means. I think I may have
overprocessed it, but I am finding it difficult to process this image
because of the wide range of brightnesses th nebula takes since it
occupies almost the entire frame. This makes selections for blurring
and sharpening difficult to determine. I think this image has much
potential, but I believe Ill have to start over with the combined RA,
R, G, and B frames in photoshop.

A few particulars I have questions about:

1)I think the color data has too much noise in the dim nebulosity
areas. Since I am an idiot and accidently binned my Ha Luminance
frame 2x2, will I lose sharpness if I process the RGB for brightness
levels only. I think I tried to bring out sharpness detail in the
color frames too much. So all in all, is it ok to process the Ha
Luminance frame for sharpness and leave the color frames along in
this respect?

2)In trying to get my color balance right, I think I have stretched
out the red data too much. I say this because in some of the darker
areas, there are dim, red stars. I am assuming they are all red in
color because they are brighter in the red channel, and may not even
show up in G and B. Does this explanation seem plausible?

3)The Epsilon 250 seems to have some nasty internal reflections at
short wavelengths. Note the bluish halos around the brighter stars.
Any Epsilon owners know how to process that out? It would normally be
fine in an LRGB image where L is the all spectrum image, but since
the halos dont show up at all in the Ha data, the blending of the Ha
and color makes the halos really stand out and I am not sure if I
like it or not.

4) I also think there might be a slight G gradient in the lower left
corner. Any ideas on how to get rid of that without buying new
software. I originally removed a larger gradient in G using the
NewAstro Gradient remover for CCDSoft.

Anyways let me know of any comments or suggestions and answers to the
above questions. I appreciate it. I just spent so much time imaging
this object, I would love to see this image look stunning. Thank You.

Taylor

I have a few images to post, and this is the first of 4. This one is the first H-alpha image I have taken with my new setup, and taken on a night with a full moon (thank god for narrowband filters!). The focus is a bit weak, but I didnt have a motor focus at the time this image was taken, and it was really cold out, so I did my best. Here's the details:

Horsehead and Flame Nebula
Scope: Takahashi FSQ106N
Mount: Celestron CGE
Camera: SBIG ST2000XM / CFW9
Filter: Schuler 9nm H-alpha
Exp Time: 90 min

Enjoy.

Taylor

Here is an image that was taken only about two weeks ago from the Miller Observatory in Lincoln, NE. Taken under a full moon (once again, thank god for narrowband filters or else what would I do when the moon is up!?). This one, I think, is stunning. The raws looked terrible and I was afraid that this image wasnt going to come out, but I think I was wrong! Heres the details:

The Christmas Tree Nebula Region
Scope: Takahashi Epsilon 250
Mount: Software Bisque Paramount
Camera: SBIG STL11000M
Filter: Astrodon 6nm H-alpha
Exp Time: 3.5 hours

Enjoy!

Taylor

Here is an image that I spent several weeks imaging. I had wanted to do this one for a long time. This image is the longest expsure image I have ever taken also! Like the Christmas Tree Nebula Region image you will find in a different thread on this forum, this image was taken from the Miller Observatory in Lincoln, NE. Heres the details:

The Heart Nebula
Scope: Takahashi Epsilon 250
Mount: Software Bisque Paramount
Camera: SBIG STL11000M
Filters: Astrodon RGB and 6nm H-alpha
Total Exp Time: 13 hrs

This image is what I call an "H-alphaR H-alphaR G B" image. This is because I composed a single frame out of the H-alpha data and the R data and used this frame for the Luminance channel as well as the Red channel. No image taken with a Luminance filter is included in this image.

Enjoy!