Is mine a large one or a small one?

What camera are you using? Is it the toucam? If you have any pics, can you post them? No matter how cr*p they look, I'm sure I've many that are far worse!

Like I said, they are pretty lousy, both of these shots were first attempts- just trying to set the camera up- I think the moon shot could have been good, but the wind was howling and knocking the scope around. I use a 3com camera (got it for nothing!)- it also has some over-exposure issues that need to be sorted!





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Dave - I think that anyone who can place an astronomical object on a camera via a telescope deserves all the credit they can get - it aint as easy as most people would probably think!

Both your images seem to be well overexposed and as you say, certainly the moon pic wasn't easy to obtain with the wind.

Can you run the camera in mono mode? I found that mono took one more complicating factor out of the equation until I hone my other skills. When ready, I'll try and shoot some decent colour pics.

Were the images a combination of stacked pictures or just single images? Signal to noise will increase if you take a number of images and then stack (with eg Registax).

I've said before that astrophotography is a long and steep learning curve. But to get a single image is a major milestone. When I show my pics (even the cr*p ones) off to non-astronomers, they're amazed! I think its really worth all the effort, pain and frustration. So keep at it!

Finally, if you're interested, check this out:

www.irishastronomy.org/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1645

Cheers

Dave McD

That's certainly a good offer- but if i took you up on it I'd just be greedy))) I'll figure it out- I'm sure there's someone out there with no webcam whatsoever.

The image of Saturn is stacked, but it was hardly worth it- more than anything I was just trying to get used to the camera and the scope. I have some impressive pictures of a neighbours chimney pot too)))

The moon is just a single shot. More than anything I just need a good clear night. I've only been able to use the scope and webcam twice, the result are above, and was in a rush to set it up before the inevitable cloud swept in.

Just one clear night....

Dave,
sorry if it seems like I'm repeating myself too much,
As for saturn, this image is about the best I got out of the ETX with a toucam.
http://www.irishastronomy.org/user_resources/files/1101635280-sat3.bmp
www.irishastronomy.org/user_resources/files/1101635280-sat3.bmp
Only in very fleeting moments do I see slightly more then this visually.

Using the canon you can get some surprising good results.

homepage.eircom.net/~sac/graphics/deepsky/m42_etx.jpg

you can see the red around the brightest stars, it would be interesting to see if the DSI would see this, is this chromatic error in the scope,no surprise really given the cost.
I look forward to trying it again, I'm re-using the same ammo here as its the one and one deep sky image I have through the ETX70.

That is a fantastic pic!!
I've a long way to go

dave,
great picture, did you take that in limerick or at a dark site?.
stephen.