Image of the day

Captured by
RICHARD COFER

M 81

About Astromart

My Account

New to Astromart?

Register an account...

Need Help?

Posts Made By: Andrew Riehl

October 1, 2002 06:13 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

first night self guiding...

Posted By Andrew Riehl
Well, I just spent the other night playing with my new camera again. Just playing around trying to get some of my gadgets adjusted and working right. These are the first dso's Ive imaged with the st-2000 actually self guiding and what not. I'm pretty darn happy with the results, considering this was my first attempt self-guiding DSOs with this camera and I was only taking short, low-res exposures. I can hardly wait to see what I'll be able to do once I get the hang of this camera and finish my equipment tweaking. I still need to work on processing (ron w., your book is on its way here as we speak) as it's quite different from film tweaking (even though this is my second 'real' ccd camera, I've still got tons to learn) NGC891 and m1 images both self guided through nexstar 11 @ f/5.8. Both are unfiltered (i forgot to bring my ir block down to the observatory with me, the GEG reducer splits a little bit of the IR off I believe) 5 minute exposures.

October 8, 2002 08:51 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

st-2000 widefield part 1

Posted By Andrew Riehl
have done some more playing around with the st-2000, this time with a 55mm camera lens at f/2 and an Astronomik H-alpha filter. Gamma Cygni region. 2x5min median combined. Modified levels and curves, slight unsharp mask followed by slight gaussian blur. Also cropped a wee bit (I had a dark spot in the corner, I forgot to remove the top counterweight from the 11" it was piggybacked on) and image size reduced a tad to save herb's space. In the future, I'll combine more exposures. Love your book so far Ron.

October 8, 2002 08:56 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

st-2000 widefield part 2

Posted By Andrew Riehl
have done some more playing around with the st-2000, this time with a 55mm camera lens at f/2 and an Astronomik H-alpha filter. North America/Pelican region. 2x5min median combined. Modified levels and curves, slight unsharp mask followed by slight gaussian blur. Also cropped a wee bit (I had a dark spot in the corner, I forgot to remove the top counterweight from the 11" it was piggybacked on) and image size reduced a tad to save herb's space. In the future, I'll combine more exposures. Love your book so far Ron.

October 15, 2002 06:22 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

salvaged image--thanks Ron W.

Posted By Andrew Riehl
Thanks to ron's book, I was able to salvage an m13 image. Unfiltered 5 minute self guided exposure with st-2000 binned 1x1 at f/10 focus of Nexstar 11". Processed in photoshop then reduced in size. This was during my tinkering phase, I think I'm ready to hunker down ad get some solid images now. A few more exposures would have smoothed out the noise a good bit.

November 3, 2002 09:46 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

something from nothing...

Posted By Andrew Riehl
M27 last night imaged through UHC filter. 11" SCT @f/5.9. ST-2000xm camera binned 2x2. Planned on getting tons of exposure time, but didn't work out that way. I only got 3 5 minute exposures; the first two had some trailing due to poor backlash compensation. Finally got some great guide numbers on the third exposure; then the clouds rolled in. So, I used the poorly guided exposures anyway to see what I could do with them. I blended a sum and a median of the 3 exposures to get dim and bright parts of the nebula. Pretty noisy (and some trailed stars), but not bad considering the exposure time. Let me know what you think (btw, processed on my laptop again, so brightness and contrast may be off a bit).

November 7, 2002 07:08 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

refractor design 'simple?' question...

Posted By Andrew Riehl
something I thought about tonight. Why no refractor objectives made from lanthanum glass? How would such an objective compare abberation wise with flourite crystal, ED glass, and traditional crown/flint designs? How would such an objective compare price wise?

November 20, 2002 09:09 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

My first try with LRGB...

Posted By Andrew Riehl
well, I finally had a few minutes to try out my new filter wheel for the first time. Not expecting much, given the nearly full moon and my lack of experience. 11" SCT @ aproximately f/5.5 (I need to determine my actual field of view with this reducer combination). ST-2000xm w/ cfw-8; lum binned 2x2, color binned 3x3. LRGB @ 15/6/6/6. Would have liked to get more time, but I need to take it easy; I just got out of the hospital this morning. Comments/tips greatly appreciated

November 25, 2002 08:56 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

m42 prelim...

Posted By Andrew Riehl
11" SCT @ about f/5.5, st-2000/cfw-8 binned 3x3. rgb@ 100sec/100sec/100sec. This is just one of 7 exposures I took to make a large mosaic. It will be a long time until I get through all the files, so I whipped this together real quick so I'd have something to show for the night. this portion will probably look completely different when I do the mosaic.

November 26, 2002 03:03 PM Forum: Deep Sky Observing

What the heck is this?

Posted By Andrew Riehl
I was piecing together an image of m42 the other night and noticed something I never ever noticed anywhere (observations, photos, etc) before. It is the small object circled in the photo. When I noticed it, I looked at other reference photos, and in every one of them, there it is. Mostly looks like an odd star in other photos. Here, it almost appears as a small planetary nebula. Anybody know what it is? Just very very curious; I can't believe I never noticed it before.

November 29, 2002 02:21 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Finally Got it Done!

Posted By Andrew Riehl
I finally finished my m42 mosaic. I overlapped the frames a little more than I thought I did; but it's still got decent coverage. 11" SCT @ aprox f/5.5; st-2000/cfw-8 binned 3x3. each frame is R=G=B=100sec. 6 individual frames covered the nebulae and backround space, and another frame centered on the core for a total of 7 individual images blended in photoshop. may need some final tweaking, but it looks good on my monitor (1.8 gamma). Comments/tips greatly appreciated.

Funding Member

Telescopes, Astronomy, Binoculars

Sponsors


View all sponsors

Search