Well, after about a year (off and on) of working with the 416XT, I finally
have a handful of images that are maybe not so bad. I still have a long
way to go for sure, but hopefully these images show enough promise that I
will be granted membership (probationary, of course) in the exclusive "416
Club" ;-} The learning curve was pretty long and steep for me, but I am
hooked now and intend to stick with it.

Most of the images were taken at the Table Mountain Star Party this past
July. You may recall some posts earlier this spring about 416XT icing - I
was the lucky guy. But Meade fixed the problem promptly so I had it back
in time for the Star Party, and I am happy with their service on this issue
(Amy, if you're listening, many thanks!). Images were processed with Paint
Shop Pro 5.00 (the poor man's PhotoShop?). I used PictorView 6.2, and a
modified Hartman mask (two 1/2" holes and one 1/2" triangle) for focusing.

I attempted some multi-minute exposures at the star party, and quickly
found that my dec drive has the jitters - will be doing a bearing mod in
the next month or so.

http://www.geocities.com/~donohue/ccd/jupsat.gif TMSP '98
http://www.geocities.com/~donohue/ccd/M57x-1.gif TMSP '98
http://www.geocities.com/~donohue/ccd/M92-1.gif TMSP '98
http://www.geocities.com/~donohue/ccd/m31.gif TMSP '98
http://www.geocities.com/~donohue/ccd/moon2.gif Backyard '98
http://www.geocities.com/~donohue/ccd/moon1.gif Backyard '98

Thanks to the list for the innumerable and invaluable posts that are so
helpful!

Regards,


Greg Donohue

"... eppur si muove." - Galileo Galilei, to the Inquisition (reputed)

Principal Solutions Engineer, Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (San Jose, CA)
Home: Woodinville WA (NE of Seattle) 47d 44' 31.3" N, 122d 06' 29.0" W
10" Meade LX200 SCT f/10, Meade f/6.3 Reducer, Pictor 416xt, 616A Color Wheel
Fujitsu 600 Series LifeBook Laptop, 133Mhz Pentium, 32Meg RAM
Win95 (4.00.1111), DOS 7.10, APA-1460A SlimSCSI, Adaptec EZ-SCSI 4.01a

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