Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Moon Sliver 11-22-08 before 8:00 AM from DC


I ventured forth from an early morning slumber to capture the waning moon near dawn. It's a stack of 30 images processed in Registax. Not perfect, but considering the hour, pretty good. I like the tonal range for this image. There's some sky glow from the rising sun, but overall it looks pretty good. This was taken with my Canon 30D through my Coulter Odyssey Dobsonian telescope.

Ambrose

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

New moon (my best yet!)


The skies finally cleared around Washington, DC on Sunday night (November 16, 2008). I went out with my newish Canon 30D and my upgraded Coulter Odyssey and took about 100 photos of the moon. I stacked 24 images in Registax and came out with this photo which is my best moon photo yet. The smallish thumbnail is above, but I highly recommend you check out a larger version on Flickr.com.


It's not perfect, but it's a gigantic leap up from my early attempts. I look forward to getting the Tech 2000 Dob Driver II Rim drive on my scope so that I can take photos with less effort in "bumping" the Coulter to track.

 Ambrose Liao
Well, it's been many, many months since I've posted but I'll try and make up for lost time. I've been fairly busy with my astrophotography. Fall is finally here and the skies have been relatively clear recently. I've finished my PMP certification course so can focus on my hobbies again.

First off, I'll be working on upgrading my Coulter Odyssey 1 13.1" Dobsonian telescope. I've already upgraded the primary mirror cell to an aluminum 3 point cell.

I've also upgraded the focuser to a 2" low profile crayford so that I could have enough in-travel for my dSLR.
Over the summer, I picked up a Tech 2000 Dob Driver II Rim version computerized tracking system for my Coulter. I'm hoping that the DDIIR will allow me to track the moon and stars much more easily so that I can improve my astrophotos.

I opted for the DDIIR because I didn't want the complexity of a GoTo scope, yet I wanted it to be able to track an object. The beauty of the DDIIR is that it will track any object (moon, stars, sun) with just a few seconds of guiding. This should be more than adequate for my purposes.

I've started cutting the base for the azimuth drive and am awaiting the arrival of an 18" new baltic birch altitude bearing for the DDIIR.

More later!
Ambrose Liao


Now I'll be working on a Tech 2000 Dob Driver II Rim installation on my Coulter.