Posts Made By: Brad Geisler

David,

Barring the price, I do not see anyway you will not be pleased with the purchase. I have had an uncorrested M250S for two years and I have to think the CRS edition, corrected and cooled, will be a real pleasure above and beyond my fine example of this scope.
Brad

Excellent image Mark, very crisp and full of detail.

Can you elaborate with camera type, how many images and processing used.

I would like to try my hand at planetary imaging sometime and that info would be very helpful to a newbie.

Thanks,
Brad

Magnus,
My compliments, especially for your first Ha image.

Am I correct in thinking your Lunt scope is the little ity bity 35mm starter scope ? I ask because I have thought about getting into Ha and have looked at that Lunt ity bity scope. If that is your start in solar viewing, maybe I should follow your lead.

Very nice image indeed.

Brad

Good catch David,

If that is not the name on the credit card he registered with, I am certain Mr. York will be looking into it.

The added security of actual identification is why I have never done a transaction on the other site.
Brad

I whole heartedly agree, congratulations to NASA and the entire team that accomplished this feat.
This is what makes America GREAT.

But I have a problem -------

Did you hear the drivle by the administrators of the event who took over the podium and declared this was Obama's accomplishment as our science leader.

What a crock, we have been religated to third party status. We no longer are the foreruner in science.

This in no way should take away from the efforts. knowledge and enthusiasm of those who actually accomplished the landing or those who go forward with the actual critical science.

I mean no disrespect, but I am offended by the suggestion that this is an Obama accomplishment after that administration has raped the program that they are claiming responsibility for the successes.

Just the way I feel. This is probably not the proper place for this post. I won't say anymore here.
Brad Geisler

David,
I am sort of in the same boat as you, I just got my adapter to connect my Canon lenses to my CCD camera.
Here is what I am thinking of targeting if the monsoon ever goes away. Have not it done it yet, but here is what my research is leaning me towards.
At 18mm, very wide fields of milky way sections. The field will be huge.
At 200mm, you can get the North American Nebula and the Pelican in the same field with lots of room to spare.
You can play with field size to get M 8 and M 20 easily in the same field.
Lots to play and experiment with. Literally hundreds of targets.
Have fun with it if you have good sky. I think I still have to wait a while.
Brad

Mike,
Looks to be field rotation is elongating the stars.
If your C8 is on a GEM, you need better polar alignment.
If you are fork mounted, you are limited to about 20 seconds in exposure time unless you go to a wedge for your fork mount.

I do not think it is related to focus, but a bahtinov mask would certainly help to fine tune your focus.
Brad

This may not be the right answer, but I have not found a way to send an expired ad back to the classifieds.

I just open two windows and cut and paste it to speed up the process. But I still have to upload the photos all over again to the new ad.

Maybe someone knows a better way ?
Brad

Hi Robert,
If your thinking of planetary imaging, your probably OK to start with the CPC. Planetary images are very short and can be rotated and stacked.

Are you talking planetary images or nebula and galaxies ?

If your thinking of deep sky objects, your CPC has a couple strikes against it. Not that it is not a nice scope, but it is an awful long focal length to get started and you will be limited to exposures of 20 seconds or so before field rotation takes affect by trailing stars in the image.
People can and do produce good images with fork mounted scopes, but you will have to have an equatorial wedge to track properly to avoid the field rotation. Even then it is very difficult.
Rather than spend money on a CCD just yet, start looking into a german equatorial mount and a smaller focal length scope. That is a good place to start. Trying to image with a fork mounted, long focal length scope my make you quit before you actually get a taste for it.
Not that you can not do it, but you would be starting the hard way.
From learning the hard way myself, the best recommendation would be a small GEM mount, an 80mm refractor and a small guide scope to guide it for long exposures. That would be a good starting point and you would know quickly if you were hooked. Read up on it, it is a great part of this hobby, but starting out wrong in imaging might discourage you very quickly.
Different equipment than you currently have could make all the difference for deep sky objects.
Brad

I was about to post a reply comment about that.

I concur !!!
Brad