Erwin

lol @ scorpius its a while back, but... i went to south france with belgium astrophotographer Karel Teuwen. we did go for 1 week. this time i took my asa ddm 85 with me, for some longer focal length test i did use the wrong spacer for the QSI 583 WS, i did not even took one with me but after some thinking, and the help from astrophotographer Martin Rusterholz, i used a stock 2'' nosepiece as spacer, but instead of 20mm to less i now had 4mm to much spacer. so here some pics. Pelican nebula=5x15min + 8 darks chip -20 degrees celcius Wall in NGC 7000 =2x15min + 8 darks chip -20 degrees celcius NGC 7822 =8x15min +8darks chip -20 degrees celcius the setup Here a pic of moonset all pics are unguided, but there is still alot to learn from this mount. especially the software part. *saving my ass off now for a tec 140 or something near that * kind regards, Erwin

thats looks like a great pieace of equipment ! i hope you get more clear nights then in holland

i will never reach a obs here in my parents house, gardens are to small but its a very very very nice camera, everything works perfect.... and here my first result from last night, i done 5x10 minute exposure with canon 70-200 2.8 IS on 135mm. i photographed through the 7nm Ha filter from baader and cooled the chip to -10 no darks were used.

thats an awesome image, great detail, awesome colors !, i love it !!

you made it very nice ! if you spray the clamps black, it even looks like its a original part ! Erwin.

Hey guys, in april this year i ordered an QSI 583 WS ccd delivery took 9 weeks to get in holland but when it was in holland i asked the company ( www.telescoop.nl from Guy de Nooij ) is he could keep the camera in his store for a few weeks ( yes i am crazy ! :woot: ) but it was for myself, so i was not playing with the camera but learning for exams, but that was nog good enough today i received a letter that 3 exams were not good :I_ANGR~14: but here it is. it has an kodak KAF 8300 chip, and at the moment there is only a baader planetarium Ha 7nm filter installed. i will try to take some first light next week in france, during an astro trip. here shown with canon 70-200 2.8 is the back kindly regards, Erwin

just made a crop of the M51, not data you want to edit, but just did a crop + curves. its still only 1 10 minute unguided exposure ( 800mm ) 8'' F4

i am already on 10 minuts unguided ! i did not try to take a longer exposure because of the upcomming sun. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- at the moment i got the flu, but this clear night was so tempting that i wanted to play with the mount again. ive spoken to a college astrophotographer ( Karel Teuwen ) from belgium. he also got an asa ddm 85 and i needed some help with the polar adjustments.... because of some unlogical thinking of myself.... but oke, i made a pointing file on the east of the meridian, ive centered the stars with a 40mm eyepiece... not the best way to do but it was for a quick try. ive selected 10 stars and then stopped the file to calculate the configuration. after that ive selected polar adjust so to make a better polar alingment. then i made a final pointing model of just 10 stars ( you can do as many stars as you want ), on the east and west side of the meridian, ( i only did the east side ) then i sayed to the mount, slew to M51. i did a exposure of 10 minuts with my eos 40D and vixen r200ss ( way out of collimation ) and its 5 bft wind speed at the moment. i only did a auto tone action in photoshop to display soms details because of the bad light pollution over here click here for the full resolution photo.... 13,5 MB !!! not a very good shot but its a learning curve http://www.astro-land.net/wp-content/gallery/random-shots/img_0076.jpg

Tony, i am almost there, my plan is 15 minute unguided exposures Ray, before the sync the encoders count an other position, so when you will slew to a star it goes the wrong way.(because the encoders think its on an other place)

Gordon, what a great image, great details and a very nice contrast !!

after all the other messages, also good things off-course. in order to tell the encoders in the mount what the position is of the DEC and RA axis are you have to synchronise a star, you look for a star and then you fill in the coordinates in the asa program from phillip keller called autoslew. after that you can also connect to the mount in the sky 6 and see were the mount is pointed ( oh damn, that works so nice ) just after the synchronising of a star i told the mount to go Vega, and this is the result.... i still didn't do a polaralingment ( only rough one ) but i also did not make a pointing file.... so i am pretty happy already.

@Asimov, indeed, its weight is already 8 kilograms @Ray, we had 5 clear nights this week but i couldn't test much because of my work. but last night i have been testing the making of a ''alingment'' called a pointingfile. after making that file i was trying some exposures but had not much luck, i placed the mount and tripod to much to the south in our garden so i could not take stars all over the sky. so the file was not very good. so tonight i hope to do better.

here some more pics. picking the mount up, in the back of the car the DEC unit with 2x 5kg in the box at the right, so a package of 30 kg the most nice thing was the packing of the counterweights. unboxed. the losmandy tripod with the asa adapter-and asa baseplate with the mount on it. the USB rumble pad/controller i bought yesterday from 9 euros to control the mount. first connector is for the internal USB hub, 2nd is com port connection for the RA and DEC axis control. last one is for the power suply. the mount with the first cloud in 3 days some more scratches. click here for a big photo of the setup .... http://www.astro-land.net/wp-content/gallery/equipment/asa-10.jpg regards, erwin

Asimov, ik knew were the online manual was i forgot to say that. but thanks i had several clear nights this week but i had to work so i could test much. tonight i will test it with making an alingment (pointing model) in a few hours ill also post sme pics of the mount how its standing right now....