Hi All, Here's a view I took Monday morning from the site I call "Pit 'N Pole West," a few miles from Vernon, Tooele County: http://www.utahastronomy.com/view_photo.php?set_albumName=Joeb&id=6946_G It is the first time I was able to get an autoguider to work. It did its job well, and I could watch the screen as the autoguider made adjustments to bring the pointing back to where it should be. Guy (Diveboss to this newsgroup) built a wonderful mount for my refractor, which I used as the guide scope. The guider was a Meade Deep Sky Imager, used just to guide, not take photos. The main telescope was my Meade 12" and I used an SBIG camera to take the views. This is a version of that doesn't have a guiding chip, so I had to use the autoguider or go back to the old days when I did do some hand-guiding. I took a number of 2-minute exposures with blue, red and green filters. Then I sorted through them and chose the best three of each type. I put those three together, then used the resulting red, green and blue versions to make a color picture. Perhaps the raw files could be processed better. Tyler is going to give it a try for me, when I am able to send him the files. Meanwhile, I found it truly uplifting that I could go to a desert area near Vernon, Tooele County, and park between the roads where the dirt routes make a Y, and get a beautiful view that has nothing to do with our world. NGC 6946 is about 10 million light-years away. Because it's seen through the disk of our Milky Way Galaxy, we're looking at two galaxies at the same time. It's a faint object, and you can see dust lanes and nebular-looking regions in NGC 6946. This galaxy has been the site of more supernovas than any other known to humans over the past century or so, but I couldn't find any in this view. Thanks, Joe
Terrific image Joe! Don't know if I've already observed that particular galaxy or not (don't have access to my notes at work), but will (re)visit it regardless next outing visually. Thanks for sharing! --- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
Hi All,
Here's a view I took Monday morning from the site I call "Pit 'N Pole West," a few miles from Vernon, Tooele County:
http://www.utahastronomy.com/view_photo.php?set_albumName=Joeb&id=6946_G __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Thank you, Rich. Next time I think I'll stick a Barlow on the refractor so the autoguiding is more precise. Also, I will take more care in balancing the whole setup. But it is an encouraging feeling to get the autoguider working. I thought this was an interesting galaxy. Best wishes, Joe
Joe; A very nice image of a most interesting object. Thank you for sharing it with us. Keep 'em coming. Ed Lunt --- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
Hi All,
Here's a view I took Monday morning from the site I call "Pit 'N Pole West," a few miles from Vernon, Tooele County:
http://www.utahastronomy.com/view_photo.php?set_albumName=Joeb&id=6946_G
It is the first time I was able to get an autoguider to work. It did its job well, and I could watch the screen as the autoguider made adjustments to bring the pointing back to where it should be. Guy (Diveboss to this newsgroup) built a wonderful mount for my refractor, which I used as the guide scope. The guider was a Meade Deep Sky Imager, used just to guide, not take photos. The main telescope was my Meade 12" and I used an SBIG camera to take the views. This is a version of that doesn't have a guiding chip, so I had to use the autoguider or go back to the old days when I did do some hand-guiding.
I took a number of 2-minute exposures with blue, red and green filters. Then I sorted through them and chose the best three of each type. I put those three together, then used the resulting red, green and blue versions to make a color picture.
Perhaps the raw files could be processed better. Tyler is going to give it a try for me, when I am able to send him the files.
Meanwhile, I found it truly uplifting that I could go to a desert area near Vernon, Tooele County, and park between the roads where the dirt routes make a Y, and get a beautiful view that has nothing to do with our world. NGC 6946 is about 10 million light-years away. Because it's seen through the disk of our Milky Way Galaxy, we're looking at two galaxies at the same time. It's a faint object, and you can see dust lanes and nebular-looking regions in NGC 6946. This galaxy has been the site of more supernovas than any other known to humans over the past century or so, but I couldn't find any in this view.
Thanks, Joe
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participants (3)
-
Edward Lunt -
Joe Bauman -
Richard Tenney