EAA and Outreach : Using the ZWO ASI294MC Pro colour camera
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In the months following this camera's purchase the Covid-19 pandemic has prevented its actual use for outreach purposes. However home viewing is a good test bed for getting to grips with how to use both the camera and the image capturing and viewing software SharpCap. Thus the following screenshots using the SkyWatcher PDS 150 Newtonian show what viewers at an outreach session can reasonably expect to see once public viewing sessions are allowed to resume. Exposure times range from 15 seconds to 2 minutes depending on the brightness of the object being observed and seeing conditions such as light pollution and sky transparency. To reduce exposure times the camera's 2 x 2 binned mode has been used, effectively doubling the size of the camera's 4.63 micron pixels up to 9.26 microns on a side. Of course that reduces the camera's native resolution of 4144 x 2822 pixels down to 2072 x 1411 pixels but even so that is plenty sharp enough for outreach viewing.
Mounted on the 6 inch SkyWatcher PDS 150 Newtonian
The SkyWatcher PDS 150 Newtonian will continue to be the telescope of choice for outreach purposes due to its portability, at least it will when outreach sessions are again allowed.
Mounted on the 8 inch Vixen R200SS Newtonian
Being mounted on a pier in the observatory, the Vixen R200SS Newtonian is not really suited to outreach work except for when visitors come to the observatory. And that has not been allowed for some time now. So the following images show the results of solitary enjoyment of the night sky waiting for the Covid19 restrictions to end.