Posts Made By: dan baldwin

Hi-- I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum or not, but anyways.... I am wondering if people have been successful using a piggy back guide scope when imaging on Ritchey-Chretien telescopes ? If so, how long an exposure is possible at particular elevations before any kind of mirror movement screws things up ?

Thanks,
Dan

I just finished my roll off roof observatory--its at a dark site in the foothills an hour west of Boulder CO at 8000ft.
It was a real bear to construct, the roof rolls off easily and all of the electronics are powered by a solar charged array of batteries. Two other pictures follow.

Thanks for looking,

Dan

Hi-- I frequently have been using the color series tab of CCDSoft when doing autoguided LRGB imaging with my ST8. Everything is usually fine for the LR and G series, but when the blue filter is in place, I frequently get the "Guide star has lost brightness" message.I understand why this occurs, but at this point, the guide star is still bright enough to guide with, yet the software seems to take a long time to display the message and corrections dont seem to be made and the guiding error starts to jump way up. My solution has been to abort the series and restart just the blue using the same guide star,same guiding exposure, etc. This always works, the message stops and the guiding errors stay within the same values as they did for the L,R and G series. Is there any way around this ? I have poked through the documentation, but didnt come up with anything. Does the software just not recognize the dimmer star as the guide star ?

Thanks,
Dan

Hope this isnt a dumb question. When summing together multiple images, brighter portions (ie galaxy cores) reach saturation and eventually subtle brightness gradients become "washed out". Is there any way to avoid this ? I need to sum all of the images to bump up the S/N of the dimmer parts.
Thanks,
Dan

Hi--I'm looking for some new ideas of how to get snow off of a roll off roof. It is a pitched metal roof, but a quick icy storm has resulted in about 8" which appears to be stuck on there. The only electricity I have is from solar recharged batterys.
Thanks,
Dan

Hi-- I have a C14 on a Losmandy GM200 mount which sits on top of a Le Sueur 7" pier. The pier is attached to three large bolts suck into an 18" concrete cylinder in the ground. The botttom of the pier does not actually touch the concrete, but is bolted slightly above it using a pair of nuts...this is used for final leveling. I am noticing some vibration from my drive which was not present when I used a tripod. I'm trying to figure out if the vibration is coming from the 7" pier itself or the way it is bolted above the concrete. If its the pier, I may be able to damp the vibrations by filling the pier with sand or concrete without compromising the bolts and leveling nuts. Anybody else have any experience with this kind of thing ??

Thanks,
Dan

I just purchased a pair of Generation 3 Night Vision Goggles and I still cant believe what a cool astro toy these are! I took them up to a dark site last Sat night, the sky was very dark for an hour before the moon rose. I'm not sure what the limiting mag on them is , but I'm guessing around 9. The beehive was totally resolved into stars. These are 1x with about a 60 degree view.Hundreds upon hundreds of stars are visible in one field of view. Lots of satellites and dim meteors. M13 was very visible, just small. I'm thinking of getting the 5x lens. Just thought I'd give a report.
Dan

Hi all -- I am giving up the hobby and need to sell my Paramount ME (circa 2005) and my Meade 16" LX200 (R) (circa 2007)-- Both have been housed in an observatory and are in excellent condition and used very little for the last 4 years. I have no idea what a fair asking price for these would be. I'd really appreciate it if someone could suggest a reasonable starting point for me ?

Thanks,
Dan

I've tried jpeg,png and gif-- 100KBb in size, but each time I try to upload, it says invalid image ? Limit is 500KB, right ?

pic2