Posted in Gear on October 16th, 2008 by Northwest Astro
There are problems when it comes to astronomy gear. You go to sell something, and you wind up getting something back in return. Your never quite sure why you do it, but you do. I recently sold my original scope, an ETX-125PE. I just didn’t have the room or the will to keep it, a 10″ Meade scope, and a smaller refractor to piggyback on top of the 10″ Meade. One too many scopes. So, I found a buyer, but instead of just offering full cash for the scope, this guy offers up some cash along with an Orion 80ED.
To make a long story short, I took the offer as it would piggyback nicely on the 10″ Meade, and actually fit the role of a decent ‘grab and go’ if I got a tripod for it. This means the AT66ED went up on the chopping block as well for resale. Glad I got that one used so it will resell better. I’ve got a few comments on the used market, and why it is an amateur’s friend, but that is better served in a different post.
Double Cluster Then
Double Cluster Now
So, the first clear night in awhile was on Tuesday, and I am itching to see what this Orion 80ED can do with a camera hanging off the end. As I wasn’t entirely happy with the way the Double Cluster shots came out earlier due to the violet stars, I figured it was a good place to start. Setup the scope in the cold, let it cool down a bit, and started taking images. Didn’t get around to playing with them until late Wednesday night after working late. Still not entirely happy with the result, but I rushed through stacking, and took all 60 exposures rather than just the ones that didn’t show streaking of stars. I still think there is a lot of good data here as long as I am more picky about the images added to the stack. I’ll probably revisit it in the future.
So, the thing is… if you do your observing at an apartment complex, expect people’s questions and interest. Up until now, it usually has just been those in the apartments next to mine showing interest as they came home or left. Two people have looked through the scope, just to find that when it is focused for my poor eyesight, they can’t see anything. Next time I have someone there looking through, I’ll have to make sure to use my glasses to focus for them.
Tuesday night though, that was something else. I got the scope setup, aligned, and aimed at the Double Cluster. I was only planning on taking images for about 40 minutes or so, doing a little bit of moon observing after that, and then head in. During that 40 minutes, I had 3 waves of people asking questions, interested in the pictures I was taking, and so on. A couple were interested in trying to look through, but since it was rather cold, I tried to ask politely to please not touch the scope as it was sensitive to that sort of thing while taking the pictures, and said if they saw me outside again, that I would be happy to let them see a few things then.
It got fairly quiet by the time I was done, and I took a couple shots of the Pleiades as a sort of experiment. I’ll definitely need more practice and a different approach before I can tackle that target. I just really got images of the Seven Sisters and absolutely no hint that there was a nebula here. Just hints that the dew had gotten to the lens on the Orion scope.
After that, the 10″ scope was pointed at the moon to see what I could see since it was still dew-free. I was greeted with some of the sharpest views I have gotten of the moon. Any night vision I had up to that point was completely shot, but the sheer level of detail I was able to get at high powers was amazing. It was possible to see fairly fine detail across the entire face, and make out craters I haven’t even seen before.
I might have to revisit the big moon photograph experiment during the next full moon, now that I know letting the scope cool down has an absolutely enormous effect on the detail you can capture.
