Paul Rix
Post Laureate
Reged: 11/06/04
Posts: 3346
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I thought I would share the images I took this weekend at the BEOTS star party in Lodi, Ohio this weekend.
I decided to travel light so I elected to give our little ETX70AT an outing and use it to do some imaging.
These were taken with the scope in polar mode (some time ago I bought the ETX tripod that has the tilt plate). The camera was a Meade DSI II Pro.
M13
and M51
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KWB
Postmaster
Reged: 09/30/06
Posts: 9268
Loc: Westminster,Co Elev.1646Meters
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Very well done. I like em'! 
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Kenny
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." - Albert Einstein
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AlexDJ30
sage
Reged: 09/02/08
Posts: 276
Loc: Monterrey, Mexico
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how much exposition time were the pics?? i supouse maybe 30 secs..or more??
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Equipment:
- ETX 125 AT
- C6 ASGT
- WO 66mm SD
- 2.5X ED Barlow, 8-24mm Zoom Eyepice
- Canon EOS Rebel XSi
- Celestron Nextimagen
- Orion Starshoot CCD cam
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seeker372011
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 03/05/04
Posts: 916
Loc: Sydney , Australia
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brilliant, especially the M51 image
I was never able to get the DSI pro to focus with my ETX; have you made any mod?
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ED 80 on a CG5 mount;ED 127 on EQ6; QHY8, 20 x 80 LW Obies;PST;10 inch GSO dob
Edited by seeker372011 (06/22/09 06:32 AM)
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Paul Rix
Post Laureate
Reged: 11/06/04
Posts: 3346
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Thanks for the comments  . The exposure times were 30 seconds.
The camera was modified for use with an Orion manual filter wheel, so it has a flat faceplate rather than the filter slide assembly. I didn't use the wheel because of the weight and bulk it would have added.
The ETX70 was the first scope Erika and I bought when we decided to get into amateur astronomy back in 2004. It was kind of nice to go back to my roots and see what the little scope was capable of (now that I have more experience). I'll be using it again as my mobile imaging scope now that I know I can get some nice results with it.
Seeker, your ETX70 images are what encouraged me to give this a try  .
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Arthur Dent
Galactic Hitch-Hiker
Reged: 10/23/08
Posts: 1182
Loc: South Yorkshire, UK
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Sweet images Paul
Well done!
Art
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If I like it, the wife says that we can't afford it!
=======================================================
Meade ETX105 (a nice "Grab & Go" scope) & Celestron NexStar 6SE with Bob's Knobs.
Various EP's from 6mm to 26mm, Baader Hyperion 8-24mm Zoom, a 2x Barlow, 2" diagonal and 7Ah PowerTank.
MRF and Antares 8x50 RACI finder scope - both for the 6SE's OTA, whilst the ETX gets a plain RDF.
Canon EOS 400D DSLR (un-modded) and SPC900 webcam. Finally climbing the AP Learning Curve!
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nytecam
Postmaster
Reged: 08/20/05
Posts: 5751
Loc: London UK
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Excellent results and pretty amazing for 30s exposure or is that 30s sub-exposures 
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Nytecam 51N 0.1W
Meade 30cm LX200+ETX-70+e-finder+C8+Ha+CaK PSTs SBIG SGS+homebuilt spectrographs
Starlight SXVF_M9+Lodestar CCDs/Canon 300D DSLR/Fuji E550
My observatory build-ETX-70 imaging-my videos
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Paul Rix
Post Laureate
Reged: 11/06/04
Posts: 3346
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Sorry, I should have been clearer there. The images used 30 sec subs. M13 was 30x30sec and M51 was 49x30sec.
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Paul Rix
Post Laureate
Reged: 11/06/04
Posts: 3346
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I reprocessed the images now that I am at home and can use my desktop PC (for some reason I get better results that way).. here are the final versions:
I think I managed to pull out some more detail there.
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nytecam
Postmaster
Reged: 08/20/05
Posts: 5751
Loc: London UK
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Thanks for the clarification - keep up the good work 
The images look very sharp - you could try a crop and rescale say 50% larger and then try a weak unsharp-mask [sharpening] routine to recover any loss of resolution. It's a bit of a balancing act to avoid overdoing it but I find it useful 
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Nytecam 51N 0.1W
Meade 30cm LX200+ETX-70+e-finder+C8+Ha+CaK PSTs SBIG SGS+homebuilt spectrographs
Starlight SXVF_M9+Lodestar CCDs/Canon 300D DSLR/Fuji E550
My observatory build-ETX-70 imaging-my videos
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jgraham
Postmaster
Reged: 12/02/04
Posts: 6760
Loc: Dayton, Ohio
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Wow, both are nice. I love the M51, it's amazing you could grab an image like that with a little ETX-70. I'd have to drag my 16.5" out to dark skies to get anything remotely close to that visually.
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-John
================================================
Homebuilt scopes from 4.25-16.5"
Meade LXD75-N6/SN6/SC8, DSX-90, ETX-60BB, ETX-125PE, DS-2130
Orion StarBlast, BinoViewers, Coronado PST
Rebel XT/XTi, DSI Pro (I, II, & III), DSI, LPI, Electronic Eyepiece, Phillips SPC900NC
Tasco 60mm Refractors
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Paul Rix
Post Laureate
Reged: 11/06/04
Posts: 3346
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Nytecam, I may give that a try. Thanks.
John, I was quite surprised that these came out so well. I didn't expect the tracking to be good enough for 30 second exposures when using the stock unit. Having the scope in polar mode certainly helped. I might give 60 second subs a try next time.
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yock1960
professor emeritus
Reged: 06/22/08
Posts: 980
Loc: SW Ohio, USA
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Quote:
Seeker, your ETX70 images are what encouraged me to give this a try .
A show of hands for how many people Seeker and Nytecam have inspired to get into imaging!
Great pictures Paul!
Steve
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LXD75 GEM
Orion Starblast 4.5" Imaging Reflector
William Optics Zenithstar 66 SD APO
Meade DSI II OSC
Meade DSI III OSC
Orion Starshoot Autoguider
Televue Powermate 2.5x
Discovery 6" Dobsonian
Nikon Action Extreme 10x50's
Gallery
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Paul Rix
Post Laureate
Reged: 11/06/04
Posts: 3346
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Well, deep space imaging with the ETX70 at least .
Using the ETX certainly had it's advantages in a star party environment.
1. It is light and easy to carry.
2. I didn't have to waste time with a fancy drift alignment because the tripod has no Azimuth adjustment (so I just lined it up as best I could with Polaris, made sure the tripod was level and the tilt plate set to the correct lattitude).
3. No Autoguiding, so short exposures are a must.
It was great to be up and running within half an hour of starting to set up. If I had taken my LX200 I would have been setting up and fine tuning everything for much longer.
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Arthur Dent
Galactic Hitch-Hiker
Reged: 10/23/08
Posts: 1182
Loc: South Yorkshire, UK
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Quote:
A show of hands for how many people Seeker and Nytecam have inspired to get into imaging!
Great pictures Paul!
Steve
Both Nytecam and Paul get wavies from me on that one too!
Art
--------------------
If I like it, the wife says that we can't afford it!
=======================================================
Meade ETX105 (a nice "Grab & Go" scope) & Celestron NexStar 6SE with Bob's Knobs.
Various EP's from 6mm to 26mm, Baader Hyperion 8-24mm Zoom, a 2x Barlow, 2" diagonal and 7Ah PowerTank.
MRF and Antares 8x50 RACI finder scope - both for the 6SE's OTA, whilst the ETX gets a plain RDF.
Canon EOS 400D DSLR (un-modded) and SPC900 webcam. Finally climbing the AP Learning Curve!
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