Posted on 02/09/2003 1:59:46 PM PST by 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.
That of course, will ultimately be up to you. I have wrestled with various philosophies (aperture vs. portability, various cool designs and features) for years! I finally just said to myself- "Enough already! Just go BUY something!"
I had a friends' 6" Newtonian Reflector sitting in my living room for about a year, but it was such a bear to haul around that I ended up with Meade's 90mm ETX90-EC. I pick the whole thing up (field tripod, scope and hand box), stuff some eyepieces in my pockets, a flashlight and a red chemlight in my back pocket, walk outside, and I am good to go. The Discovery Channel Store at Sun Valley Mall had some kind of special promotion thing going on- I got the scope, the tripod, the Autostar computer handset and some eyepieces for about $450.00
I am still figuring it all out, but it looks like a winner of a setup. Jupiter was really quite spectacular last night at about 11:00 PM here in the Bay Area.
Better images to follow....
If I had some land someplace, I think that I'd do the same. I can do the next best thing, though- make a portable permanent pier out of a Dragon's Tooth antitank obstacle.
Sorry, just woke out of a dead sleep...wandered into computer room- must...freep
Riley, thanks for pointing me this way!
Very nice indeed. I did look at those as well, but there weren't any at the shop when I went into 'buy something already!' mode- so maybe my next scope...
I had been hemming and hawing and reading up and comparing for about a decade when I finally moved and got the ETX. About time! :-)
This is my first attempt at photographing the planet Saturn using a Schmidtt Cassegrain Meade LX-200, eyepiece projection using an MA 25mm eyepiece and a tele-extender, Fuji 400 1.5 second exposure, taken with an Olympus OM-1 camera.
I know, it's out of focus. Focusing is critical and my next shots should show surface or atmospheric gas/cloud bands. I am currently experimenting with different types of focusing techniques.
I right clicked on the image box, copied and pasted the image URL into my browser, went to the location manually, grabbed a copy of the photo, uploaded it to my web space, and wrote a new link:
And hopefully, my next shots will show much more detail. I am just so busy with work and designing and building the observatory, I don't have much scope time now.
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