Posts Made By: Jeff Hapeman

Just thought I would be first to try out this new image posting forum.

Jeff Hapeman

Well, I am an unabashed Tak fan. I have the following: FCT-150, FSQ-106N, FS60-C and an NJP-160 mount with the Temma system and pier. I have owned an FS-128F, CN-212, an EM-200 mount and a second, non-N FSQ as well...all in the last year. Jeez, this is addicting.

Anyway, here's the three refractors I have now. That's a Tak 5mm LE for scale near the FS60-C. It's such a cute little scope....I told my wife that I left the FCT-150 and FSQ alone for a weekend, and this is what happened. She didn't buy it.

After yet another winter where I think I may have permanently sterilized myself from exposure to Wisconsin's sub zero temps, I have decided I must have an oservatory before next winter. The wife has signed on the PO, so it is a go.

What I can't decide is, roll-off roof or dome? I am looking from input from both camps, and maybe someone who has done/used both. I want to keep the scope and electronics (computer and CCD) permanently in the observatory, and hope to remotely run most of it since I mostly image. This makes me lean more towards a dome. Aesthetically, I think a roll-off roof might look better....

I will have a variety of scopes in there, but probably no more than one at a time. Largest scope for now is the FCT-150, which is about 1.5 meters long.

Comments, thoughts, etc?

Jeff

First light with a C11. This is my first try at long focal length imaging, so the guiding was not perfect, and the seeing was crappy as usual.

This is with an ST-10E, 6x10 minutes. Minimal levels and curves in Photoshop, some LR deconvolution in AIP to sharpen it up a bit. Color would be nice, but this B&W has sort of a "3D" look to it.

Jeff

Found some old data on my computer while poking around. This is a 3x15 minute exposure of the central portion of the California Nebula with my Takahashi FCT-150, SBIG ST-10E and a Custom Scientific amateur grade H-alpha filter. This is actually from last October...

Jeff

For those who were wondering what I was saying in earlier posts about the Klez virus and it's ability to do what is called "email spoofing" this article does a really good job of explaining it. It will benefit you to read this as someone may no doubt tell you that you are infected and are sending them the virus when in fact you are not. Of course, you should still keep your software patched (if it was, Klez could never infect you), and more importantly have GOOD anti-virus software and keep it up to date on a daily basis.

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-916995.html

Jeff

OK, I not only eat crow, I will cook it up and serve it to others....Rick is right--you *have to have* this software. After seeing what it could do on some real images, I had a friend run a frame of M45 I had through the software, and I was stunned with the results. So I put my money where my mouth is and bought a copy today. Got it via email in less than 20 minutes. Less than 30 minutes later I had a very nice shot of M45 from what had been VERY messy data--HUGE spikes. Attached is the cleaned up shot, and here's a link that shows one frame to show how big the spikes were. The software is fast--it took less than a minute to clean up all the spikes on 22 images (about 34MB of data), and works well--I simply used the default settings.

http://www.ntsllc.com/ccdastro/Messier/M45-BR.html

This image was flawed by a loose lens in my FSQ that elongated the stars in the upper right and caused some diffraction spikes, but otherwise I am tickled. M45 is *not* supposed to be a CCD target, but I would put this up against virtually any film shot, and I don't even consider this a best effort.

Jeff Hapeman

I haven't posted here in a while, but I haven't disappeared ! We had our first baby, a daughter, this spring...then I was hospitalized with meningitis and out of commission for a month in the early summer....Anyway, I am back in the saddle and spent most of the end of July and August working on this giant mosaic of the Veil nebula in hydrogen-alpha. The details are tedious...18.5 hours of exposure over four weeks and many hours spent assembling this mosaic. I left the edges "rough" because I liked the effect.

Taken with my Takahashi FSQ-106N, SBIG ST-10XE, Takahashi NJP-160 mount and a Custom Scientific 3nm Hydrogen-alpha filter.

The attached image is the small (!) version at 226Kb. There is also a medium-resolution version at 915Kb:

http://www.ntsllc.com/ccdastro/images/Veil/Veil-Mosaic-med.jpg

And the huge, full-resolution 2.5MB version:

http://www.ntsllc.com/ccdastro/images/Veil/Veil-Mosaic-full.jpg

Enjoy and thanks for looking. Hope you enjoy this as much I enjoyed taking it. This is what makes this hobby worthwhile...

Jeff Hapeman

This is just a quick process of some data that I need to spend more time on, but I think when it's done, it will be pretty nice. This is a 100:30:30:40 minute LRGB with an SBIG ST-10XE and a Takahashi FSQ-106N.

Jeff Hapeman

I had taken a few shots two weeks ago with my new Nikon D100, but hadn't thought of posting until I saw Paul's shots with his Canon D60. The Canon and Nikon are similar, although the Canon does not use a CCD--it uses a CMOS sensor. While Nikon has not announced what CCD they use in the D100, the specs are identical to a Sony chip that was announced earlier this year, a few months before the D100 came out.

I was out with my ST-10 imaging, so I took my D100 out last new moon and using a 35mm lens (which is effectively a 52mm lens on the D100 due to the size mismatch between film and the CCD) at f/2.8, I took four 30-second exposures of the Sagittarius region and stacked them in Maxim. The color is a little off, but this was just an experiment. Pretty neat what these new cameras can do (I also used the dark-frame noise reduction feature built in the camera).

Native image size was about 3000x2000 pixels, which i reduced to make it more friendly to the group.

Jeff Hapeman