Obligatory Crab Image...

Here is my obligatory Crab Nebula image for the end of 2009. It was up, so I shot it. Again. No color this time. Same stats as the others, but 6 thirteen minute images with the C6 sct.

Crab Nebula - with C 9.25 scope

I shot this picture of M1, the Crab Nebula last night. It has been really windy, so I have not had much chance to get out and image. I am also still adjusting the focus on this scope and finding a ccd set-up that works for me. This seems to be about the best, though it is an old camera; the Starshoot I.

This is about a dozen 8 minute images shot at F5'ish guided on my LXD75 with a separate guidescope. Focus was slightly off, but a good deconvolution corrected it.

First Images From New Camera

This image of M1 "The Crab Nebula" was shot with my new SBIG ST7 CCD camera. I recently sold my largest scope to buy this and enter the world of self-guided CCD's. However, I still haven't gotten all the guide bugs worked out, and for the time being, I am still guiding with a separate camera - my DSI Pro.

This camera works a little different I am figuring out. Most of my other camera's like a lot of stacked medium to short exposures to keep the noise level low. This camera seems to do best with a few stacked long exposures, the longer the better.

Anyway, this image is the result of median stacking 7 three minute images.