Introduction and first attempts

Hello,

For as long as I can remember (and that's a LONG time) I have been fascinated by space and the universe

As a child I used to be glued to the TV any time 'The Sky at Night' was on.
And I still try and catch the program on BBC each month.

As a vchild I dreamed of owning a telescope, but could never afford one. As a young adult life took over.

The last Christmas I managed to negotiate a small reflector telescope as my Christmas present.

Every clear sky since then I have tried to be out with it! AND I have been amazed!

Now I think I have caught the Astrophotography bug.....

I bought a €5 CMOS webcam on eBay and went out on 25th April this year. Attached are the two shots processed with Registax (and amazing piece of Software!). Conditions were not ideal....nearly full moon and viewing over the garden shed...but I'm happy

My Telescope: Celestron Astromaster 130 EQ.

I have invested in a better (more suitable?) webcam and eagerly await its arrival in the post....hopefully with some clear skies!

Peter

Second image

Welcome Peter!

Its a good start with the images.

Focusing is hard without an aid. Can I suggest making a mask.
If you're not aware of these then a quick run-down:-

A Hartmann mask is easy to make - a Bahtinov more tricky - but I (and many others) feel its better. But to start try a Hartmann.
That's basically card, for example, to obstruct your aperture and have a couple of nicely cut out holes some distance apart.
Place this in front of the scope and point to a star - you'll see two images when out of focus and the images coincide into one when in focus. Remove the mask and target the moon and you're off. There are variants but the basic works well.

Later you may want to get a barlow or something to increase the size of your planetary discs on the webcam chip.


Good on ya

Mark

Hi Mark,

Many thanks for the advice!

I'll certainly put it into practice when I receive my new webcam.

I am, by nature, a tweeker and bodger

Shorly after getting my telescope I made a Hartmann Mask.

On the 25th I was so excited to be able to even see the Moon/Saturn via the webcam that I never even thought of using the Hartmann for better focussing :blush:

I did try a 2x barlow on Saturn but the image was just too blurred (out of focus and webcam was not up to it) that I gave up on that.

Also, with such a small scope it was sometimes very hard to 'see' the light of the image to focus on with the webcam (limited controls and NO gain control).

I'm hoping that the new camera will help here.

At the moment....all I can do is contemplate anyway.....so many clouds

Thanks again Mark!
Peter

Peter...
Did you by any chance buy my webcam!?
:laugh:

If you got that image of the Moon with a regular webcam
your gonna get class shots with the Phillips one!

BUT!!!
You defo need the Infra Red Cut filter!
As I was saying you can pick em up cheap on eBay.
they make a huge diff to the shots.

Best of luck!!

Frank.

Yep,

That's me Frank

Got my first decent night out on Fraday last.

And here's the result with the new webcam:

Celestron Astromaster 130 EQ
Hand tracking
2.5 x Barlow
(no filter, used my Hartmann to focuw, was VERY windy...the weather...not me)

I think I need a bigger 'scope.....

But definitely more 'detail'. Viewing was lovely that night through the lens.

Looking forward to putting the camera through more of it's paces

Take care,
Peter