Posts Made By: Stephen Fugardi

Paolo, I opened my May 2006 Astronomy magazine and found your gorgeous LRGB Saturn images on page 102! It was nice to see some published images from this forum. We may be used to the incredible quality, but I think it's exciting to share some images with the greater astronomical community. Thank you

Regards,
Steve

Last night had the potential for the perfect Jupiter viewing. Max altitude (low 30's) was reached at 1:55AM, Io transit shortly after 2AM and the Great Red spot reaching the mid point by 3AM. Only one problem - avg/below avg transparency/seeing with high cirrus clouds rolling in right at the peak of the show. At the beginning of the Jupiter season, I was hoping to capture at least 1 transit and 1 red spot, so getting both at the same time was amazing. After recovering from a brief power outage from one of my 4 extension cords coming loose during my collimation tuning, I was able to take 23 avis, and the 18th one seemed to be the best. Shots taken with my C11, 2.5X powermate, Toucam + IR, 1/25sec, 40% bright, 0% gamma, 100% Sat, 40% Gain, Auto off, 10fps, best 100 taken from 900 frames stacked in Registax. Io and its shadow are visible from the 4:00 edge. While I swore never to stay out until 3AM on a work night with below average conditions, I could not resist trying to capture this event. Hopefully, we can all get at least one perfect night...

Regards,
Steve

Folks, Most nights I struggle to align my permanently scope in a reasonable amount of time and usually settle for "good enough". Last week, I noticed a laser alignment tool on a tripod at work. After taking a closer look, I saw that each leg had a built in bubble level with adjusting thumb screws. If that setup was good enough for a laser alignment, I figured why not try it on my C11 mount.

After a trip to Home Depot buying 3 cheap $2 bubble levels I placed them on my mount near each bolt. I was shocked to find the level way out! The first thing I did was to remove the mostly deteriorated rubber wafers under the top plate and the above the underneath bolt (these should never have been installed anyway). Originally, I leveled the top plate using a carpenters level then just attached the mount/scope but never checked the final level. While I could not get a wrench on the the 1 1/4" bolts which were mostly buried under all the metal, I was able to hit a screwdriver with a hammer to adjust the above bolts. Once exactly leveled, the underneath bolts were tightened and the level was still perfect.

I am hoping that this precise leveling will make polar alignment a snap. Of course I will need a clear night to check it which has been rare here in CT. Clear skies

Regards,
Steve

Robert, incredible detail on Jupiter and its moons! That new DMK does a nice job. Thanks for posting!

Regards,
Steve

Tom, nice mat. Where did you get those interlocking black flooring pieces? My concrete floor kills my feet. thanks

Regards,
Steve

Robert, absolutely gorgeous image with nice detail at that altitude and conditions! thanks for posting.

Regards,
Steve

Folks, I installed an east-west mechanical adjuster on my mount this weekend which was sitting in my miscellaneous scope box since 1996, not realizing what it was. Unfortuneately I had to remove the scope to install it. At least now the base is exactly level! The knobs tweak the base left or right as needed in very small increments. I haven't actually tried polar aligning yet, but last night Jupiter stayed in my webcam field of view with a 2.5x barlow for close to 20min so I think it should be close. The only down side to good polar alignment is now my dust motes become part of the image, where before, the planet was always moving and they always seemed to average out. I guess it's time to learn flat fields...

Regards,
Steve

With terrible weather conditions and not being able to use my scope for over a month, I decided to give the dome a fresh coat. Sadly, 4hrs after my paint job it rained, hopefully it was dried enough... My next job is to improve the base sealing since some water seems to seap in after heavy rain. I am thinking of trying roofing cement around the outside edges. It would be nice to see Jupiter at least once more under above average seeing before it's gone for the season. Hope you have decent skies

Regards,
Steve

PS: My neighbor apparently cannot appreciate my dome and put up a fence...

Folks, finally after many weeks of wet cloudy weather, I was able to capture Jupiter approximately 90min after its transit last night. My previous attempts with a 2.5x barlow always seemed blurry, so this time I tried 1.8x. Seeing/transparency were average. Toucam 840 at 10fps, 40% Br, 16% Gam, 50% Sat, 0% Gain, Red 32, Blue 20, 1/25sec, best 168 frames stacked out of 900. This time I used Mike Salway's conversion from avi to bmp before using Registax. This enabled me to create a reference frame using multiple images. Previously, my best alignment frame was used as the reference because the avi file would not allow me to do this. This seemed to help, although the image is still blurry. I attempted to split the main file into RGB files, but was not able to recombine them with AstraImage, yet. Between this RGB recombining & good deconvolution, I am hoping to improve my image processing.

Regards,
Steve

PS: If anyone knows of free software that can do this please let me know.

Eric, absolutely gorgeous image. Hands down one of the best shots from the Northeast this year. What is amazing is the sharpness at that altitude and with a 3x barlow. Thanks for posting it!

Regards,
Steve