Posts Made By: Rick Krejci

Incredible detail, particularly with that setup!

As usual...great job, Jake!

Rick

Chris,

If you're planning on using the short focal length scopes, I'd suggest a CCD with the smaller pixels.

I'd suggest the St2000XM over the ST-8 for the smaller pixels. You can always bin for the long focal length shots.

I'd also suggest the Starlight Xpress SXV-H9, which is my camera of choice. It's low thermal noise and low read noise allow the taking of shorter exposures and no dark frames are needed whatsoever, even at my ambient temps of 95F in the summer. I use a FS60, Epsilon 160 f3.3 and a 7" f6 MakNew. You can see my shots here:
http://www.ricksastro.com/SXV_H9.htm

Plus, it's a little cheaper and much lighter.

Rick Krejci

James,

It is a prime focus image.

The camera itself does noise reduction, but it's not a dark subtraction since it doesn't add any time to the shot.

I didn't do any dark subtraction. I use the clone tool to remove the 15-20 hot pixel streaks after combining.

Rick Krejci

That's a real beauty, Johannes! Great star color.

Rick Krejci

Craig,

The D100 uses a traditional CCD detector (the 10D uses a CMOS) and from the results I've seen, is much noisier than the 10D.

The Rebel uses the same (or at least very similar) sensor as the 10D and seems to have similar capabilities.

The Rebel has a pentamirror system rather than the 10D's pentaprism. This is not in the imaging train and does not move...it only puts the image from the focusing screen in the correct orientation and size in the viewfinder.

The Flip mirror is what protrudes into the imaging train when an image is not being captured. It reflects the image from the lens to the focusing screen which is what you see (via the penta-mirror/prism) in the viewfinder. When the camera is ready to take an image, it flips this mirror up and out of the way, so the light goes directly to the CCD sensor from the lens. This creates a small vibration. The 10D allows you to lock this up and out of the way before you take an image, allowing time for the vibration to dampen. The 300D does not have this capability.

For long exposures, this isn't a major issue, since the vast majority of light comes in after the vibration has dampened. For Lunar and planetary images, I've found that using mirror lock-up was slightly sharper than without using my 10D.

Rick Krejci

Mark,

Really a super image. You've captured some nice deep detail, including those dark linear bands just to the right of M81's core. Your processing is great as well.

Rick Krejci

Looks like an internal reflection of the crescent to me...at those extreme brightness levels, there are bound to be reflections like this.

Thanks, guys! It's nice to get a good streak of clear weather!

Rick

Hey, Sweet!

I'm glad you;re making such quick use of the E160...and what good use it is!

Rick Krejci

Paul,

A great camera for beginners is a Canon 350XT. To me, it can perform up with the best of them.

One thing to consider, though. It loks like you are in the Phoenix area. With nightime lows in the 90s, cooling is going to be a huge issue. The Starshoot is cooled, which may give it an advantage.

Rick Krejci