Gallery XXVI

            Home bound, I decided to try to image from the bedroon deck out back with an Orion Short Tube 80 on a Tegull II Tak mount on a photo tripod with a Stellacam II and Mogg f6 focal reducer. Settings were: gain at 1/2, gamma (contrast) on low, integrations at 256 frames (8.5 seconds). Capture was to a lap top computer with Astrovideo via an Imperex card. 10-50 frames were added on the fly by Astrovideo with dark frame subtraction on the fly. Images were tweaked with GIMP. Imaging ended when the mount failed to track.

        Lessons learned:

• Without tracking, even 2 second images are smeared and can't show the Leo Trio that was seen on the 8.5 second images, even when many are stacked

• There is a great difference in what can be seen at 2 and 8.5 seconds of integration

• It is difficult to image with an under mounted scope

• The Tegull is better suited to holding just a camera and lens then the set up I've had it carry.

The Images:

The Flame nebula and Horsehead nebula. The first is 30x8.5 seconds, the second is 40x8.5 seconds.

The bee hive was naked eye visible, but exceeds even the generous FOV of the focal reduced ST80.

I tried for the Rosette but only saw NGC 2244 on the screen, these were "tweaked to bring out the nebula. These were 40x8.5 second images - 5 min 40 sec total! These images show that the Rosette would require "way" more time to image.

I grabbed a view of M81 and 82 but the mount began to act balky and I could not center the objects on the chip. Note the star trailing.

BTW, it was cold, about 20 degrees f.

    Summary:

• Short Tube 80

• f6 Steve Mogg focal reducer

• Stellacam II

• equatorial mount with drive and only rough polar alignment

• captured with Astrovideo

• all are 8.5 second, lo gamma, mid gain images

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