Deep Sky Hunters

A 👫 of developers 💻 with a passion for astronomy 🔭🌌  

[deepskyhunters]

Saturn's dance with Titan

At last the sky is clear (no clouds, no dust) and i have time - a new image of the Saturn will be shoot tonight.

I placed the telescope outside to cool down and while waiting for the scope to cool down and for Saturn to rise I prepared all the other equipment (and maybe drank a beer or two and watched a episode of Sabrina).

Once everything was set up and Saturn was high enough, it was time to start shooting it.

The equipment we used was the Orion Maksutov 127/1540 on the Starseeker IV AltAz mount and the Omegon VeLOX 178C camera together with a 2X Barlow.

The image you see is the result of the best 25% out of 2648 frames stacked. Stacking and editing was done in Registax 6.

We hope you enjoy the photo.

Clear skies!

[deepskyhunters]

Saturn - The Child Devourer

Last summer we tried to photograph Saturn for the first time with our new telescope. The results were astonishing as you can see.

We packed our gear and drove to the old village where we usually observe the night sky. The Sun was setting as we arrived so I started setting up the mount and telescope. The mount we used was the Orion Starseeker IV and the telescope was the Orion Maksutov 127/1540.

After all was set we waited a bit for the telescope to cool down (and enjoyed a cocktail or two).

We started shooting once Saturn got high enough. In the middle of the imaging session some old friends of ours came and paid us a visit. Probably because they spotted our soft blanket as they wouldn't leave once they laid down on it.

The camera we used was the Omegone VeLOX 178C camera together with a 2X Barlow lens. As you can see there are two different final images because we shoot Saturn two times that night. The first image (down) was created by stacking the best 970 out of 2157 frames and the second image (up) was created by stacking the best 3190 out of 8010 frames using Autostakkert3!, and the details were extracted using Registax 6.

Both images are more or less good. You can clearly distinguish the different cloud patterns and the Cassini division in the rings, but the first image (up) is the one that left us really astonished as you can clearly see the shadow Saturn throws at it's own rings.

All in all this was an excellent imaging session and we hope you enjoy the images.

Clear skies!

[deepskyhunters]

Lunar Diary (#1): First try

After we bought the Orion’s Starseeker IV mount and Orion’s 127/1500mm Maksut telescope it was time to try them out.

The plan was to photograph the Moon using the Omegon VeLOX 178C autoguider camera, while a 0.5X focal reducer was connected to it, because it was impossible to capture the entire Moon with the focal length of 1500 mm, as the camera's sensor was too small.

The first step, of course, was aligning the mount. We did not use the 2-star alignment option, because the stars have not been visible yet, so we used the daily alignment and aligned the mount with the Moon. The tracking was great, although we didn't do the alignment with the cross eyepiece, which is needed for accurate tracking.

After a successful alignment, we connected the camera to the telescope and tried to focus on the Moon… and we didn't do very well.

We turned the focus handle left and right, but nothing showed, and at that point, the previously mentioned reducer catches our eyes standing on the table, instead of being attached to the camera.

After connecting the camera and the reducer, we finally managed to focus something, but… boom, the Moon still did not fit in the field of view. We will probably buy another reducer to achieve a reduction of 0.25 (0.5 × 0.5 = 0.25; 1500 × 0.25 = 375 mm).

The photo you see is the result of stacking the 500 best images. Image alignment, stacking and testing of the Wavelet feature (which sharpens and extracts details in the final image) was done in Registax 6. We hope you like the image.

Clear skies!