Posted in Observation Log, Technique on September 16th, 2008 by Northwest Astro
AT66ED
LX200R
47 Megapixel
As a sort of ‘well, duh’ moment, I finally got the new scope collimated properly for the first time since I got it last night. The results were immediate and obvious. First thing I did after collimating was to point it at the moon that was just starting to wane as Jupiter had already sunk too low.
The resulting detail was pretty amazing. I went ahead and grabbed a shot from the AT66ED and the newly collimated LX200R to compare between the two. I also posted a full 47 Megapixel version of the LX200R image that lives outside the gallery for those curious about the full-resolution mosaic.
Tonight I was able to get out early enough to get a little visual observing in on Jupiter, but no chance to capture any video to see the difference it will make when trying to stack up an image. The views I got were rather impressive though. Jupiter’s bands were well defined, and I could make out the northern bands quite clearly. Also I caught a moon’s shadow on the face of Jupiter, clearly defined as a black spot, the first time I have been able to see that level of detail visually. Hopefully this will become a treat once I get the chance to point the scope at Jupiter for imaging purposes.
