Posts Made By: Chris Nisbet

NGC 4567/4568 and 4564 at prime focus of 1992 C11 Ultima, hypered Tech Pan, 60 minutes (manually guided), 8x10 scanned and no digital manipulation.

Chris
Cedar, MN

More Schmidt shots that I discovered I had not yet printed to an 8x10.

Taken with (the gone but not forgotten) 8" Epoch/Celestron Schmidt. Both 25 min on hypered Tech Pan, #92 filter. Scan from 8x10 no digital touch up. Kinda like a very wide field ABG CCD camera but at only less than 20% of the cost of a CCD camera!

Chris Nisbet
Cedar,MN

Another Schmidt shot-same info as NGC 7000

Chris

Once again the power of the old Tech Pan comes through. This is a 25x enlargement from the negative image and no grain breakdown. 8" Schmidt camera, #92 filter, 25 minutes hypered Tech Pan. Straight scan from an 8x10 with no digital manipulation.

Chris
Cedar MN

Taken with the same instrument as the previous post. 25 minutes, #92 filter, hypered Tech Pan. Have printed my last sheet of Kodak brand photographic paper. I think I have printed all the negatives from this instrument.

I believe M38 is in the upper left corner.

Chris
Cedar, MN

This is my first prime focus image with a C11 and an ST8XME. No dark or flat fields applied. 7x10 minutes binned 2x2.

Chris
Cedar MN

In December 2005 I finally abandoned film (or it abandoned me) and set out in the world of CCD imaging with a ST8XME and my 1992 C11. Whoever said there was a long learning curve was dead on. Computers, CCD cameras, autoguiding (never did do that with film), cords everywhere, precise guiding, precise focusing, all this stuff had to be relearned. Color was something I always wanted to do but never did with film. So, here it is. My first attempt at taking a color shot. I decided to start with a common target so I could gauge the results. Taken with a C11 with an Optec .5x reducer.

Chris
Cedar, MN

After many years of aquiring various Celestron "stuff" both old and new, I have assembled a very portable, yet extremely stable C8. I didn't come up with this design and then set out to get the components - it just worked out this way. The C14 tripod and wedge orginally held a 1992 C11 Ultima. The C14 wedge was modified to accept the base of the Ultima design. That was a HUGE improvement over the tripod and wedge that came with the scope. A number of years ago, I aquired an Epoch 8" Schmidt camera that I mounted in the 1995 vintage Ultima fork mount. Great combination-I still mourn the loss of Tech Pan film. Wanting something a little more portable, I aquired a complete 1982 vintage C8. I then started selling off some of the equipment to get into CCD imaging and, when I was done, I was left with a 70's era C14 tripod and wedge, a 1982 C8 OTA (great optics!) and a 1995 very stable Ultima mount. Put it all together and you get what is in the picture. It is nearly a perfect combination of all the best Celestron had to offer. Great optics, great mount and stable. I can lean on the wedge when observing and nothing moves. Great mount for field use since it only requires one 9 volt battery (two if you count the AAM computer).

My main instrument is the 92 C11 on an MI-250 with all the "stuff" for CCD imaging. Sometimes its nice to to get back to the basics with this C8 combination without the hassles of computers, power supplies, cords everywhere, etc.


Chris
Cedar, MN

I have only been CCD imaging now for a little over a year. I use a C11 that when it is outfitted with a CCD camera (ST-8XME)comes in around f/11.4 (about 3200mm of focal length). Is it that much more difficult to image at that length vs using Optec 0.5x reducer? Seems like the autoguider does have to "work harder".


Chris
Cedar, MN

Long story short, I happened upon an unused copy of the CS2 upgrade. Question is will this upgrade work from Photoshop Elements 5.0 or does it need a higher version?


Chris
Cedar,MN