Posts Made By: Greg Bradley

I did a narrowband of this object recently. Vela is getting higher in the sky early morning.

TEC180FL, Apogee U16M, Astrodon 5nm Ha O111 and S11 filters.

Taken from my dark site observatory in NSW Australia.

S11 Ha O111 90 60 45.

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/108942571/large

Greg.

I reprocessed this one as it had more in it.

A beautiful galaxy, often only shown as having the main arms which are bright but is in
fact a rounded spiral galaxy.

LRGB 90 30 30 30 30

http://upload.pbase.com/image/109035861

Greg.

Similar question to the camera question.

Planetary imaging has its unique needs, so what type of scope matches that best?

Greg.

This one proved tough to process.

I am now happy with it but it took a long time.

TEC180FL, FLI ML8300.

http://jjd.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/108595534/original

Greg.

5:30 hours on an interesting galaxy.

Tak BRC250, FLI Microline 8300, Astronomik filters.

Taken from my dark site observatory in NSW Australia.

http://upload.pbase.com/image/108657891

Greg.

With DSLRs they perform better without the restrictive UV/IR cut filter.

Is this true with planetary cams?

I see the Imaging source cameras often have theirs removed. Is this a special
feature that other cameras don't have?

Greg.

I have been looking at the specs of several cameras.

This would appear to have one of the highest but I may be overlooking something here.

My setup will be TEC180mm fluorite or Tak BRC250 using either with a Baader fluorite flatfield converter
giving say 5 or 6X =F35 or more. (Baader FFC will do up to 8X).

This is the camera. A Point Grey Research Grasshopper ICX274 chipped 1624 x 1224 (2mb)30 frames per second, with firewire 800mb/sec and 14 bit analogue to digital converter with 8,12,16 or 24 bit data output, 32mb buffer, binning and regions of interest ability. This means a smaller ROI would give a higher frame rate if needed but if not needed 30fps at 2mb could produce a lot of resolution. This is a mono camera although colour is an alternative.

Hard disk memory is cheap now, I bought a 1 terrabyte external hard disk for AUD$250 so memory is not really a concern.

http://www.ptgrey.com/products/grasshopper/Point_Grey_Grasshopper_datasheet.pdf

The chip is the same as the Lumenera 2-2 but the electronics would on paper appear to be considerably superior.

Am I evaluating this right?

Or would I be better off going for a KAI0340 chip with 200 frames per second capability and 640 x 480 or an ICX424 with 9.9um pixels with its resultant lower noise and higher sensitivity and also 74 frames per second but "only" 648 x 488?

The consideration being image scale, sensitivity and speed of fps.

Any suggestions about this?

Greg.

I had some good seeing last night after a thunderstorm blew through.
This galaxy is a southern gem and quite a bright galaxy. The theory is
that 2 galaxies have merged. This galaxy is also a very active in the
radio band.

4 hours 30 minutes. TEC180mm fluorite, FLI Microline 8300,
Baader clear filter, Astronomik RGB.

LRGB 110 50 50 60

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/109533611

Greg.

A beautiful spiral galaxy.

I was very happy with this one as looking at examples of this galaxy on the net I have only seen it shown as the brighter inner spiral core. The fainter outer arms are not seen.

I used a Baader clear filter for luminance. This has no UV/IR block so it lets a bit more light through.

Also the fluorite lens of the TEC180m FL is showing its strength here with less scatter than other lenses and slightly more throughput. I first noticed this feature of fluorite lenses with a Tak FS152. My dark site has virtually no light pollution and is usually very transparent. Seeing is usually pretty good although one night it wasn't when I took this image.

TEC180FL at F7, FLI ML8300 camera.

ClearRGB 160 50 60 60

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/109598263

Greg.

A famous Southern Galaxy. This one is very bright and is now in a good position to be imaged.

TEC180FL, FLI ML8300 camera, Ha Clear RGB 40 130 60 30 50

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/109630053

Taken at my dark site in remote NSW Australia.

Here is another version where I blended in an additional 2:30 I had from a previous effort using a 12.5 inch RCOS.
Surprisingly or perhaps not following on from Roland's post the other day, the TEC largely outperforms the 12.5 RCOS although the RCOS gets more detail in the core area. The refractor gets a finer and smoother more pleasing contrast as well as goes a lot deeper with those faint spiral arms.

Greg.