Weasner's Meade ETX Guest Gallery

GUEST LUNAR ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY

Last updated: 12 December 2006

Many ETX users have sent examples of their astrophotography. If you have some examples you would like included here please send me a description of how you made the astrophotos and a copy of the images as GIF or JPEG files (due to internet email gateway issues, please send only one image file per message). Send to etx@me.com. Alternatively, if you have created your own web page with your examples please let me know and I'll include a link to your site.

Submitted by: steve harper (intmid8tr3@yahoo.com) [12 Dec 06]
Just thought i'd send one of my first pictures of the moon that i took with my new Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTI. I had it attached to my ETX 125 scope.For someone that knows very little about astrophotography, not bad. Although Keith at OPT was a big help! I know the ISO was at 100, and shutter was on manual.. Thanks for the website and all your help. Mike here: As you can see, there was some camera motion during the exposure. With cameras that having a moving mirror (or shutter) this can occur. The way to avoid that is to use a higher ISO setting and a shorter exposure. But that won't always be doable so using the "hat trick" method is an option. Using a "hat" (black cardboard, cap, etc) cover the telescope aperture, open the shutter, quickly move the "hat" away from the telescope and then back (using caution to avoid hitting the telescope), and then close the shutter. And: quick question about weight. even in prime focus setup, is there a counter weight system needed or made. or do i just tighten the heck out of the scope. Mike here: Yes, adding a counterweight can help tremendously. There are lots of ideas on the Helpful Information: Astrophotography page. BUT don't overtighten the axis locks; you can damage them.

Submitted by: Nicolai Wiegand (nwiegand@gmx.de) [8 Dec 06]
here are some of my latest photos for your "Guest Astrophotography Gallery". The first is the 8 days old moon with the Canon Rebell through the ETX 125. The "Clavius" done with the Meade LPI und a barlow lens.

Submitted by: Paul Campbell (iamzoup@yahoo.com) [30 Nov 06]
here is a recent photo of our Moon. This photo was made from 10 avi's of 10 sec each at 1/150 of a sec. 15 fps. I used my etx 125 and a sac 7 ccd mounted to a 5.7 focal reducer. They were taken from my home in Pa. They were processed in registax 4 and cleaned up in photoshop 9.0 - photofilter and noiseware

Submitted by: Dennis Fisher (dfisher@bricmont.com) [8 Nov 06]
The attached picture was taken about 1 day after the October full moon. It is the result of about 150 pictures, stacked with Registax 3 and stitched together with Paint Shop Pro 7. Most of the lines between the individual pictures are gone but a few are still a bit visible, depending on how well I was able to adjust the gamma and histograms. The pictures were taken with an ETX 90 mounted on a Celestron CG-5 mount (I knowit's overkill but you could swing from that thing and it won't move.it's extremely steady) using a Meade DSI imager, no filter. The site location is Pittsburgh, Pa. The elapsed time for all of the pictures was about 3 hours. North is on top about 30 degrees clockwise of the vertical.

Submitted by: Howard Fink (howardfink@gmail.com) [8 Nov 06]
Shot with ETX-125 and Logitech Fusion webcam at 1024 x 576 and focal reducer to f/9. Multipoint alignment (11 alignment zones) with Registax 4, a miracle product. (Forgot to feather, so there's still the alignment borders showing.) Cropped out of original, doubled in size in Photoshop to show the level of detail easily.

Submitted by: Dieter.Wolf@DNSint.com [8 Nov 06]
I ended this year's autumn session yesterday evening with a quick look at first quarter moon. It was really a 'quick look' as I had half an hour from unpacking the scope until my wife called for dinner..... Nevertheless I shot 750 frames of the southern limb with ToUCam Pro at prime focus of ETX-70AT with 2x barlow lense (2006-10-31, 19:30 CET) The great wall plain of Clavius had just sunrise with parts of the ground still dark but the central mountains illuminated. The smallest, visible details go below 10km in diameter (about 5 arcsec) which is quite nice for the little scope. North of Clavius you find Tycho (in an 'unspectatcular view' at low angle light) with his about 2km high central mountain. Now we're going for really bad autumn weather awaiting storm, freezing and first snow... Clear skies to all of you and thank you, Mike. Dieter (Munich, Germany)