Tips on ETX Photography

[Airconvent]

Hi all,
I got this from Weasner's ETX Astro Forum. Was very impressed by his guy who had been taking some very good shots from his ETX.
He indicated how he did it, so I thought I will share his method here.

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From: "Dominique Boutigny" <boutigny@in2p3.fr>
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2005 00:49:02 +0100
Subject: Deep sky pictures with the ETX

Hi,

Thanks for all your nice comments. Here are a few more details.

The Philips ToUCam webcam is modified for long exposure as described in:
http://astrosurf.com/astrobond/ebtruc.htm#truc06 this is in fact a
simplified version of the original mods from Steve Chambers:
http://www.pmdo.com/wvest1.htm

I also replaced the color CCD of one of the webcams by a black and white
one, which is much more sensitive. This mod is described in:
http://astrosurf.com/astrobond/ebvpnbe.htm

I am using a x0.5 focal reducer that can be screwed in front of the
webcam adaptor, this increases the field of view up to a value which is
very interesting for many deep sky objects.

The main problem with the ETX is the tracking which is not very good for
long exposure. The practical maximum exposure time is ~10 seconds. For
M1, I recorded 500 10" exposures and selected only 85 good pictures from
them.

The image acquisition is done with the AstroSnap Pro software:
http://www.astrosnap.com/
The image stacking and processing is done with IRIS:
http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/us/iris/iris.htm

The URL for the M1 picture is:
http://boutigny.free.fr/CrabePS3MEM_filtered.jpg
I also have done M92: http://boutigny.free.fr/m92-03sept2004-5.jpg

[swee sin]

provided you can mod ur webcam like he does! not with my "shaky hand"! anyway, very nice shot!

[kamayok3]

Must get into a really dark sky then...... ETX focal length is too long....need more time to exposure.

[Airconvent]

Must get into a really dark sky then...... ETX focal length is too long....need more time to exposure.

and you need a good ccd camera.
my nikon 4300 can take planetary shots but not the darker ones.
even in Mersing, a bright Andromeda M32 refused to appear on my image after 30 seconds! Also tried Comets T2 and Q4 last year and they failed to register too...sigh...

[kamayok3]

But eventhough I am staying in city, I still manage to get the nebulosity of M42 with my CP4500. The setting is much more important..I think!

About the latest comet...I manage to capture it in green color in slightly light polluted and average sky condition. But unfortunately, The tail doesn't show up. Badddddddd.......

If someone wish to see my M42 result. I can send your guys a email. The size of photo is too large, so, have to send to you all personally.

ETX can take nice photo with the right exposure,right sky and right place.

[Airconvent]

But eventhough I am staying in city, I still manage to get the nebulosity of M42 with my CP4500. The setting is much more important..I think!

About the latest comet...I manage to capture it in green color in slightly light polluted and average sky condition. But unfortunately, The tail doesn't show up. Badddddddd.......

If someone wish to see my M42 result. I can send your guys a email. The size of photo is too large, so, have to send to you all personally.

ETX can take nice photo with the right exposure,right sky and right place.

Hi Kakayok3,
you can alway edit the photo down to a more manageable size before uploading here.
just set dpi to 72 and reduce the dimensions of the file and its file size will automatically reduce. can also try increasing the jpg compression when saving the file.

rich

[kamayok3]

Thanks for the guidance,rich!

I will do that later...