Freeper Amateur Astronomers Image Thread

My photos | 2-9-3 | Joe Hadenuf

[Joe Hadenuf]

For those interested, I thought it would be nice to start a thread for amateur astronomers/photographers. In light of recent events involving amateur astronomers, and the Space Shuttle tragedy, I thought this would be of some interest to see what backyard amateur astronomers are capable of.

I took this photograph below with a Meade Instruments LX-200 10" Catadioptric Schmidt Cassegrain telescope. It uses a series of lenses and mirrors.

The photo was taken on 4-8-00 Craters Theopilus and Cyrillus and the larger craters in the center. I used my Meade 10" SCT using eyepiece projection/tele-extender, with an Olympus OM-1, Fuji 200, 1/2 second exposure. I believe the central peak in the center of crater Theopilus are in excess of 22,000 feet in height, and it's shadow can be clearly seen, to me anyway, LOL! Hopefully I will improve on my focusing.

The Apollo 16 landing site was just to the left of large craters and Apollo 11 landing site was in the upper left of the photograph.

This was one of my first attempts, and was slightly out of focus. I now and using different focusing techniques and will display some planetary photographs next.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Thought you may be interested. And hows that new scope working out?

[EggsAckley]

Polar bear in a snow storm?
<{;o)

[Joe Hadenuf]

I'll post some more current shots of the planet Saturn and the Orion Nebula etc. Try not to laugh to hard.....

[Joe Hadenuf]

Thought this may be of some interest to you guys. Remember, it's amateur night.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Ping...

[Riley]

Thanks for the ping, Joe!

I took it out yesterday and aligned the finderscope. The moon was up and visible during daylight, so I took a look at it, both with a Plossl and with a Barlow attached. The postal carrier gal happened by, took a peek, and thought it was severely cool!

Last night, I used the basic electronic handbox controller that comes with it to manually track Jupiter. It resolved to a nice, clean disk, with color bands visible- very nice.

Today, I am switching it over to AltAz alignment and slowly working through how to orient and train the Autostar contoller. I have set the elevation plate to 38 degrees (near San Francisco), set the tube to Home Position and I am reading through the manual.

I am a bit hampered in all of this by being quite ill, and I have big nasty palpitation flurries that make me pack everything up and haul it inside for a rest, so it is slow going.

If anyone else has a Meade ETX90-EC, I can post some links to really good info that I have found on the Net.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Seems my photo disappered. Heres a link.

http://www.sphosting.com/dbslx200/lunar%20surface.jpg

[Riley]

Joe, your picture-posting host is freaking out. I can freepmail you my e-mail addy and you can send the pics to me- I can put them up on one of my accounts if you like.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Where you able to see the photo? I checked back a few minutes ago and it was gone. LOL! Heres a link if you couldn't see it. Got any idea what would make it vanish?

Hope you get well soon. And if I find any links ETX I will post them. I know there are a lot of good sites out there. Try this one, www.mapug.com

http://www.sphosting.com/dbslx200/lunar%20surface.jpg

[Joe Hadenuf]

LOL! I am new at this posting images thing. The link appears to be working fine though.

[XBob]

very nice photo.

That is a problem, posting our photo's to a server, without costing a lot of trouble/money.

I wish you luck.

I got rid of my telescope as a kid when I figured out I couldn't see "Mt. Palomar" type stuff, so couldn't really contribute, but I hope you find enough. I always enjoyed the astrononomy posts.

[XBob]

LOL! I am new at this posting images thing. The link appears to be working fine though.

You are 'seeing' your own file from your own hard drive temp file. we cant see your hard drive, you must get the photo to a hard drive we can read, a server.

[Riley]

I think your host prohibits remote image linking- since I keep getting a 'prohibited' page when I try. I was able to copy and paste the link to my browser and get it that way.

Offer still stands.

Here's some ETX stuff that I have found:

Weasner's Mighty ETX Site

ETX Tuneup

ETX Astrophotography with a Golf Ball Cam

[Joe Hadenuf]

Hey, thanks for those links.

I am going to go back to this host and read a little, and see whats up with the posted image.

[Riley]

Okay, let me know if you'd like me to post them for you. I may be going out for a bit (a walk, some food, maybe to get an AC power adapter for the scope), so I'll check back in when I return.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Yeah, go ahead, Thanks.

[Joe Hadenuf]

OK, here we go. I'll try this again. Oh, and thanks Riley for the info about my ISP!

[Riley]

No problem!

This one, I can see. You have some planetary shots too?

[Joe Hadenuf]

Yeah, I am still struggling with my new site. I'll get back to you with some of my latest nebula and planetary images.