Ancillary Imaging Equipment
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Orion Mini guide 'scope with Orion Starshoot autoguider. Despite its modest size this 50mm diameter unit works well with the AZ-EQ6 mount, never failing to find a suitable guide star. When controlled by PHD2 it invariably holds position on the guide star within acceptable tolerances for extended exposures. This camera / guide 'scope combination delivers a resolution of 4.77" per pixel which is less than the recommended maximum of 4 times the 1.39" per pixel resolution of the Atik 383L+ imaging camera / Vixen R200SS OTA combination.
2nd Orion mini guide 'scope with a 22mm ProStar illuminated reticle eyepiece. This 50mm finder 'scope is excellent for initially locating alignment stars at the beginning of an imaging session. Quantum electronic filter wheel containing 7 Baader 1¼ inch filters. Being a sealed unit it is completely light-tight. It is controlled by cable from the observatory laptop. The 7 Baader 1¼ inch filters comprise two sets. The first set is for LRGB imaging using luminance, red, green and blue filters. The second set is for narrowband imaging using OIII, SII and Ha filters. These can be used in a number of ways but in particular they allow allow the Hubble palette to be used. The 1¼ inch filters are perhaps too small for the camera's CCD size resulting in vignetting in the corners of images taken. 2 inch filters would not cause this problem but changing over to a 2 inch filter wheel and filters would be expensive and it is not really necessary since the vignetting can be corrected by using flat frame images in the image calibration process. Spike-a-flat variable intensity illuminated panel. This is used for creating flat frame images. The telescope tube is positioned mirror-end down and the panel is placed face down over the open end at the top. The illumination of the panel is adjusted by using a small remote control. Baader MPCC 2" Coma Corrector. This was originally bought for use with the GStar-Ex3 camera and the SkyWatcher 150PDS telescope. But unfortunately it could not be used there because it required the focuser draw tube to be racked right back into the focuser housing causing it to obtrude well into the telescope tube. And that not only blocked incoming light but also caused unwanted artefacts in images taken with the camera. However the coma corrector works extremely well with the Olympus OMD-E10 Mark III camera. It also works equally well with the ZWO ASI294MC Pro camera. |
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A motor was added to the manual focuser on the Vixen R200SS. But see later update. Click the button for more details.
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HP Pavillion laptop and Acer auxillary monitor. These are used in the observatory for telescope, camera, filter wheel and autoguider control as well as image acquisition. Having the two screens side-by-side allows for the simultaneous display of many programs.
HP Pavillion desktop. General purpose use that includes session planning and image processing.
HP Pavillion desktop. General purpose use that includes session planning and image processing.