Astromart

March 31, 2003 08:42 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

m3 lrgb

Very nice - really sharp with good detail.

Ron Wodaski

April 1, 2003 11:00 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

What was the altitude of the star? If it was low toward the horizon, atmospheric dispersion may have done this. At low angles, the atmosphere does the same thing a prism does - it spreads out the spectrum.

Ron Wodaski
http://www.newastro.com

April 1, 2003 03:31 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Auto Guiding Question

Posted By Ron Wodaski

There is more to guiding than meets the eye. It's not as simple as attach the guider, find a guide star, and go. To get good guiding, you'll need to:

* Test your mount to see how well it performs in tracking
* Tune your mount for best performance in guiding (backlash being the number one thing here).
* Test your mounts' ability to guide accurately
* Learn the ins and outs of calibrating your mount for guiding (what makes a good guide star; what kinds of error occur, what they mean, what to do about them, etc.)
* Spend some time guiding with your mount to learn about it's quirks and limitations.

Since you have an SBIG camera, you already own a good manual on guiding. I wrote the manual for CCDSoft, and the chapter on guiding goes well beyond the abilities of just CCDSoft, and gets into the subjects described above. For a more thorough treatment (as well as lots of other useful stuff), get yourself a copy of my book, "The New CCD Astronomy."

LX200 mounts vary considerably in their ability to guide effectively, so it's well worth spending some time to see just what your mount can do.

Ron Wodaski
http://www.newastro.com

April 1, 2003 09:44 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System