Hi All:
Yes, I know - it's been many moons since I've posted here. Life has a way of taking up a lot of time. I came across this astrophotography website today and just had to share it. It hosts photos of the heavens and of gear - two of my favorite things. Give it a peek and I'm sure you'll find something of interest:
http://www.astrophotogallery.org/
Oh yes - I did finally get a clear sky and some time in the DMO pod last night. I spent some time looking at a couple favorite objects, including M31 and then decided to re-do my mount's periodic error correction curve. To do that, I fired up a CCD-Soft software package called PEMPro II. Basically you point to a moderately bright star to the south, just west of the meridian and the software tracks and records the error in your mount's mechanics. It analyzes the error, creates a correction curve and then uploads it to your mount (a Celestron CGE in my case). The mount then offsets its tracking with this cyclical correction data to null out the error inherent in it. The result is more accurate tracking. To go thru the process requires collecting about an hour's worth of tracking data from one star. So not exactly exciting if you catch my drift (no pun intended ;-) Anyway, got that wrapped up and then explored a few objects around Cassiopia and Cephus. All in all, a productive night in the pod! Hopefully I'll get some new photos up soon as I do have some data stashed that needs a bit of stacking and processing to make some nice astrophotos. Cheers!
Peace & blessings,
Donn / The Astro Monk...
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