Very interesting, Marco & excellent images. Looks like the JWT has some
competition!
Alan C
On 08-Jan-24 10:20 PM, Marco Alpert wrote:
Although this has absolutely nothing to do with Pentax, since Larry brought up
astro-imaging, I can’t resist showing the initial results of something that has
really reenergized my passion for astronomy. Although I’ve owned a couple of
really nice telescopes since the early 90s (which were great for visual
observation when I lived on top of a not-too-light-polluted hill and could just
roll the scopes out to the driveway to observe), since we moved to the
Sacramento area, the combination of light pollution (around Bortle 7 for anyone
who knows what that means), and the increasing difficulty of lugging them out
to set up had pretty much ended observation for me (and I was never
particularly interested in the intricacies of astrophotography).
Then, a few months ago, I acquired a small, inexpensive, “robotic” scope for
what is called EAA (electronically assisted astronomy) that promises the
ability to visually observe in light-polluted areas (albeit on the screen of a
phone or tablet) as well as offer much simplified photography. Here are a few
of my first results:
M33 Galaxy in Triangulum:https://flic.kr/p/2pgYEEb
NGC 7635 Bubble Nebula in Cassiopeia:https://flic.kr/p/2prm5Qg
NGC 1499 California Nebula in Perseus:https://flic.kr/p/2prkrFu
This little gizmo has only a 50mm (~2 in) objective (which is tiny for deep sky
objects) and has the ability, controlled by a phone or tablet, to automatically
find and slew to whatever object you tell it to and begin taking a series of 10
second exposures. Let it keep doing this as long as you want and watch the
object appear on the phone or tablet with more and more detail as the
successive exposures are stacked and processed. I did do some post-processing
on these, but as I have exactly zero experience with astrophotography, it’s
pretty primitive compared to what’s possible.
So, a telescope with a built-in computer-controlled alt/az mount, a digital astro-camera, auto-focuser, dew heater, multiple filters, small carbon-fiber tripod and a fairly nice case, for about $500.
We truly live in the future.
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