At the last several BMC PVCC star parties I have seen Ray Adams, Howard Moneta
and Mike Cawley dazzling us with this new imaging device. It is only $300 so I
bought one and used it for the first time yesterday morning at 12:30 am from my
backyard which is bortle 6.6This is M13 globular cluster shot through my 8 inch
newtonian reflector tracking on a German equatorial mount for under 30 seconds.
I still need to learn how to better adjust the brightness, contrast, gain,
exposure time, stacking, and many other parameters. However, this image was
taken after studying the manual for about an hour and then learning some of the
many controls for about an hour, focusing on a star for a few minutes, and then
taking several images over about another half hour. Not quite up to Chris
Johnson's or Chet Schuler's astrophotography, but not bad for wanting an
inexpensive way of preserving memories. Also, for public outreach programs with
little kids unable to look through eyepieces, or for large crowds with little
time to have everyone look through the eyepiece, this can come in handy. I
still love looking though the eyepiece best of all. But when you are trying to
see a deep space object in not so dark skies, this can help alot. Sam Insana
President of PAS
Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE smartphone
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