On 31 May 2011, at 20:53, gazebo4sale@comcast.net wrote:
Maybe I missed something, and I really a novice but I got one real crummy picture last night by 3:20 AM.
Not to worry. It takes a while to figure out what to do. Heck, even when you know what you're doing it can still take a while. A great example is when several of us gathered in Bob Moore's office in downtown SLC some time ago and remotely used a 2 meter scope on Maui to take pictures. We were there a few hours and in the end we had one nice picture (see page two of http://www.slas.us/Nova/2010/NOVAMA2010.PDF ). Afterwards I heard a few people were disappointed as they had thought we were just going to shoot one image after another. It just does not work that way, at least not if you're trying to make pictures that are nice to look at. That could be partly why impatient people like me go with taking data images. You should see the ones I'm churning out as I enter this. Focus isn't quite right. Targets are not very well centered. Some of the stars are way overexposed and blooming. But every one contains useful scientific data. And every now and then you end up with yucky pictures that lead to discoveries: http://www.slas.us/Nova/2008/NOVAJF2008.PDF Ah, but there I go again, proselytizing for data taking. :)
CCDOPS has a focus function that keeps taking frames while you change the focus. The frames are displayed repeatedly on the screen and the value of the brightness is also displayed. When you get close you see the stars bloom and the numbers advance. When you pass the focus the numbers decrease.
That's the basic idea, but if the stars are blooming you probably ought to be using fainter stars. In my experience the fainter stars show problems with focus much better than bright ones.
It is a real simple procedure to operate, but getting the focus is challenging.
Welcome to astroimaging. :) Ok, back to my very ugly but very useful data images... Carpe Noctem! patrick