Re: [APML] New Prime Focus

Hi Alan,

Thanks! Yes, I will probably get an autoguider in the future but first I need a decent scope for AP. My little 3" Stellarvue is a wonderful little scope for visual use but doesn't lend itself well for long exposure film shots. To illustrate what I have to deal with, here's a jpeg of the raw, untouched 2400dpi scan...

http://www.starryestateobservatory.com/My_Homepage_Files/Page98.html

Also, I think my focus was a little off. The softness of the finished image was induced by me using SGBNR. After all the vignetting correction and stretching the image was very chunky looking so I kinda went overboard on the smoothing. I definitely still have a lot to learn about processing. And yes, the brown background stuff is really there. That was one of the things I was trying to bring out that resulted in the chunkiness. Even though this isn't a great image, it will give me something to work on for future images.

Gary

----- Original Message -----

From: Alan Voetsch

To: Discussion of Film Astrophotography

Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 1:50 PM

Subject: Re: [APML] New Prime Focus

Hey Gary,

Congrats. While guiding the 49 minute shot, did you ever say to
yourself; "That's it, I've gotta get an autoguider?" 8-)

This shot looks funny, but I'm not sure why. It looks soft, or not
clearly defined for some reason. Could your focus have been a little
soft, or maybe that in combination with some guide errors?

I see that some of the faint brown background stuff shows here, but
cannot be certain because of glare on my monitior. Do you know if it is
actual, or is it an artifact resulting from the processing?

Keep on shootin',
Alan

--- GARY HATFIELD <Starmangmh@msn.com> wrote:
> Here's one of my rare prime focus shots from the morning of 2/6.
> It's my longest guided exposure so far, 49 minutes, but is also a bit
> blown out. Oh yeah, it's of M42...what else?
>
http://www.starryestateobservatory.com/My_Homepage_Files/Page51.html<http://www.starryestateobservatory.com/My_Homepage_Files/Page51.html>