Posts Made By: Jared Wellman

Hey All,
I'm just getting into imaging and I'm planning on hitting a dark site this weekend that is sponsored by a local club here (which I am not a member of...yet)

I'm trying to figure out what is the protocol for using a laptop while out at a dark site. Obviously the screen is a light source and a somewhat powerful one at that. I plan on dimming the screen prior to even going out there but it's still a significant source of white light. Should I just leave the laptop in the car and not bother with it? Or is this kind of thing pretty normal?

I've looked over the club rules as well as the dark site's protocol but it says nothing about laptops...just that white light should be kept to an absolute minimum.

Thanks,
Jared

Here are a couple of my first attempts using my dSLR (Canon XS, unmodified). Telescope is a Celestron Onyx 80MM EDF. I've done some afocal but these are my first attempts using the SLR at prime focus.

The tracking was a little off, anything over 3 minutes and it started getting pretty bad. M42 is 3 minutes. The others are 2 minutes. Minimal processing in Photoshop. All images at 800 ISO, no flats or darks were taken.

Jared

Orion Nebula:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/averen1/3208144536/

M82 and M81:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/averen1/3208144814/

There are a couple of others in the photo stream.

Thanks for all the info! It turned out to not be a big deal. I ended up setting up towards the end and turned the laptop so that it wasn't facing everyone else. A couple of the other guys had laptops setup and even in the main observatory there were a couple of laptops. I'm sure it depends on who all is out there and what they're doing though.

Saturday was a public star party and I was one of just a couple of people that had setup their own telescope.

I'm just getting into imaging but I got a couple of pretty decent shots. Especially considering that this was the first time I had imaged with my dSLR.

Thanks again for all the info! I'll be getting one of those red screens and building something to keep the dew off the laptop.

Here are some shots from this weekend:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/averen1/sets/72157612700705165/

Jared