Object : Vega
Date/Time : Sept 30, 2014
Location : My Backyard
ISO : 400
Exposure : 60seconds
Sensor Temp : 36c
Images
The Great Nebula in Orion
Orion Atlas EQ-G
Went to the Orion Telescope store in Cupertino just to buy a 182mm tube rings for my other telescope, the Celestron C6N, an old telescope that I wasn’t really able to use that much. This time wanting to fix it and learn a couple of skills such as collimating and aligning.
For some reason, already went out of the store and started the car but just can’t take my eyes on it, went back and couldn’t control my compulsive buying. Left with it unfortunately got home and the weather forecast wasn’t that good as it’s cloudy and rained for the next 4 days.
Got home and unboxed it and figured out that I don’t have the AC adapter. Good thing that I have the Celestron PowerTank that I can use the car batter adapter. Assembled to make sure everything is working, but ooopppss, the hand controller have a very old firmware, the motor controller have a very old firmware, and the motor when slewing sounds very noisy and something is not right.
Finally, clear skies, went outside my backyard and tried it. Spent a whole lot of time aligning it comparing to the Celestron AVX. Mounted, placed the telescope, waited for the Polaris to show up and did a 1, 2, 3 star aligment. Again something is odd, it doesn’t point to the right direction by a complete hemisphere. Pointed to the star in the western hemisphere but pointed on the eastern hemisphere. It was a complete disaster. Only one conclusion, return or replace.
Went back to the store talked about the problem but they couldn’t believe what was wrong with it. The guy in the store tried it and obviously the motor doesn’t sound good so the head was replaced.
Again went home and opened it and see the major difference. The hand controller is newer with the latest firmware. The motors are so quiet and smooth. Probably I got a bad old copy of the mount.
It’s time to test it, alignment was so easy, choosing the stars for alignment was a breeze, a complete turn on my first experience on setting it up.
First target, Andromeda Galaxy, to test the Celestron f/6.x focal reducer/corrector. Made some error on tracking and using a very long exposure, the result was not very good.
Second target, the Pleaides, not so sure what happened as the result are not very good. Alignment was good but the images did not turn out so good. My post processing capability seems to be lacking.
I was about to give up as it’s already very late when I saw the Orion Nebula and I gave it a shot, pointed the telescope and looked at it and I was very surprised with what I got, a very beautiful nebula so I reset the tracking and the imaging cameras and added all the exposure information. Fired all my automation and slept.
Next morning, I got this very beautiful image, with a very minimal post processing that I did before going to the office.
Single Image
Before and After comparison
The final image
Stacked Image
Before and After comparison
The final image
Software for stacking : DeepSkyStacker 3.3.2
Final image processing : Lightroom
Total number of light images : 13
Total number of flat images : 14
Total number of dark images : 11
Exposure length : 2 hrs and 14 minutes
Update
Orion 80 ED Carbon Fiber Triplet APO
Recently added the Orion 80ED Carbon Fiber Triplet APO to my arsenal. Used the Orion Nebula to test it and the following are the images. A more wide field sense of the Orion’s Belt with the Running Man on the left.
Celestron C6N
Taken with an old Celestron Newtonian, the stars seems to glow with star pointers very visible. This is a very old telescope, one of my first and still the image is very good.
Update
Atlas EQ-G
I recently bought an Atlas EQ-G but wasn’t really able to test since it’s been raining. Also found some problems and returned it and luckily got replaced. The replacement was a newer model, newer firmware and hand controller.
I was really impressed with the performance, with a very minimal time was I able to align and capture some cool images without the aid of an auto guider.
Please take note that no post processing done on the images below.
VEGA_LIGHT_60s_800iso_+31c_01289stdev_20140930-20h24m47s996ms.jpg
VEGA_LIGHT_60s_400iso_+36c_00928stdev_20140930-20h19m08s866ms.jpg
POLARIS_LIGHT_60s_400iso_+28c_00580stdev_20140930-20h07m53s456ms.jpg
Also, I’m very surprised about the stability of the mount. This is what I got from Auto Guiding
Camera Peltier Cooling v1
Recently did a first pass of my camera peltier cooling. It was supposed to be just a prototype of what I ultimately want but ended up continuing and tried to see if the enclosure was fully capable of storing the cold air inside. The conclusion, it was a big disappointment. I’m starting to work on my next cooling enclosure but still waiting for some part coming from Amazon.
While waiting, will be testing the effectivity of this cpu cooling fan.
Enjoy Life!!!
This photo was taken on May 24, 2008, missing my family so much specially Gaby. I spent most of my weekends going places to find something to do. I recently bought a telephoto lens and just want to try it out until I found a man playing his violin in the park.
I stopped for a while, listened and enjoy the music. It was good, this is how I enjoy life. I really love the music of the smooth sound of a violin. Though I can’t recognize the music being played, but the notes resonated as the music is telling me something about a story of a long lost love found and gone again, but for a brief moment, love was felt and reciprocated but was too late.
My Vintage Camera
Practice
My kids had an awesome time with their cousin Clarence, taught them some basic drums and Gaby was able to quickly pick up a couple of sequence. All in all, it was a good time, my kids enjoyed it so much playing with their cousin why in the Philippines.
My First Ever SLR with My First Photos
A simple flower
Flower
I’ve always been fascinated by sunsets on it’s beauty
These pictures were taken around May 2000, It was my Father’s vacation that he brought me a Canon REBEL X SLR. It was an awesome camera and from time to time still using it. It’s a 35mm film camera with all the goodness of getting everything calculated in your head before you click that shutter button or else, you can’t delete it. Those were the good days of having a film slr camera.
Celestron Advanced VX Mount Broken
I bought the Celestron C11 with the AVX Mount last May and was so disappointed that the mount is broken. All I’m getting from the NexStar+ hand controller was Error 16 and 17, while I’m getting a better error message on the StarSense hand controller where it says “Unknown model, can’t communicate”.
Called the service center and they we’re all very helpful but again disappointed with the repair duration where it will take 30 working days. That’s technically 6 weeks of waiting. Well what can I do than to wait. This might be good for me as it buys me time to complete my Focuser.
The mount on it’s way to the service center.
UPDATE:
Yesterday I received the mount, surprised that it was early. Did a quick test and it seemed to work just fine. I noticed some problems on the mount as the cover for the RA motors seems to be missing. The cover of the declination motors seems to be touching the rotating head and I can clearly hear the friction. Took my screw driver and just readjusted to give some clearance.
Today, I just thought of checking the StarSense AutoAlign with the mount, and unfortunately it was not working. The StarSense hand controller is reporting that the mount is not known. What a bummer. Extremely dissatisfied with Celestron Repair Service.
AVX Mount with the replaced NexStar+ Hand Controller
AVX Mount with the StarSense Hand Controller
Some picture from the handcontroller
