My Hobby of Astrophotography

I really enjoy looking through my 10” LX200 and doing visual work.  My true passion however lies in the use of film or CCD to capture and share what I find in the sky.  I have only been doing this for a year now but I have compiled a list of my best shots and present them here.

Here are my latest shots of a few objects.  I took these on September 10^th and 21^st, 2001.  The weather in September in St. Louis was great during the month of September. 

If you are considering using a Cookbook CB245 use an infrared cutoff filter.  My image quality greatly improved after doing so.  On the shots of Jupiter and Saturn (shot Sept 21^st), I used 0.1 sec exposures.  I stacked 10 shots of each of the RGB.  The shots were taken at f/20, using my 2x Barlow lens to increase image scale.  Prior to beginning any of my shots, I performed a round of PEC training on the right ascension axis followed by declination learn.  I did this to help keep the planets on the chip longer since I was at f/20.  For deep sky objects it is essential to use both PEC train and DEC learn in order to do long exposures without tracking errors.  For those that have not seen my equipment page, I use the following for imaging:

For CCD Work:

10” Meade LX200 (f/10) on field tripod with Superwedge mounted on a permanent pier in my rolloff roof observatory

SBIG ST-7XE ABG with CFW8A Color filter wheel loaded with standard SBIG LRGB color rejection filter set

Optec TCF-S Crayford style focuser

Optional use of Meade f/6.3 or f/3.3 focal reducers

2x Barlow lens for greater image scale most important for planetary work

Phillips TUCam for other "tinkering" around

I sold my CB245 (Cookbook 245) CCD camera (with LDC upgrade and shutter) with its SBIG (Santa Barbara Instrument Group) LRGB color rejection filter set for color CCD, the Lumicon Sliding Filter Holder to hold LRGB filters for use with camera and the SBIG (Santa Barbara Instrument Group) IR rejection filter (screwed into nosepiece of CB245)

For Film Work (Piggy Back wide field only):

Pentax K1000 with fisheye lens and standard 50mm

Various focal length telephoto lenses for Pentax camera

Meade Piggyback camera attachment adapter for 10” LX200

Kodak Gold ISO 800

Chose the image type you choose to view:

Film                         CCD