Next version of Mod showing great promise

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Starry Jack
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Next version of Mod showing great promise

Post by Starry Jack »

Howdy!
I've been away working on my mod and had great success this weekend.

So essentially:
1. I took a $50 Celestron Nextstar 100mm f10 system.
2. I cut off 200mm of the OTA so that the front of the PST etalon comes to a point 200mm inside of focus
3. I bought a 100mm Lunt ERF
4. I mounted this ERF on the outside of the objective simply by wrapping some felt round the edge and it fit PERFECTLY in front of the lens holder from the Celestron
5. I cut my gold tube about two inches from the front of the etalon
6. I inserted the PST (black box and 2” of gold tube) into the Celestron
7. I added an Baader 1.25” UV/IR Cut filter to the nosepiece of the camera
8. DONE but these were very soft images

LESSONS LEARNED and NEXT STEPS:
1. The PST Black Box is too heavy for the inexpensive focus unit of the Celestron
2. This caused WAY too much slop and no good optical alignment could be had so the images were very mushy
3. So I took my nice Explore Scientific 152mm achromat and removed the objective. This left me with an OTA that PERFECTLY accepted the f10 Objective and Holder from the Celestron complete with my external Lunt ERF. I slipped this unit into the OTA of the 152mm ES and pushed it into the OTA until it fit snugly into the second set of baffling rings; this gave me my 200mm shortened OTA with not cutting. I kept the solar unit centered in the OTA by wedging it with identical wood shims and ensured I had mechanisms to keep the unit from slipping out.
4. This new scope used the heavier-duty focuser of the Explore Scientific OTA and allowed me to use my JMI motofocus (a HUGE advantage). It only takes me about 3 minutes to convert the scope back to a LUNAR/DSO scope so it's a win/win.
5. The new images from this weekend show excellent performance and great potential as I learn to use the software and camera and can now focus on improving my skills as an astro-videographer.


Here are some images:
Attachments
2015-10-24-11-25-00.jpg
2015-10-24-11-25-00.jpg (70.17 KiB) Viewed 3526 times
2015-10-24-11-59-19.jpg
2015-10-24-11-59-19.jpg (40.08 KiB) Viewed 3526 times
2015-10-24-11-50-04.jpg
2015-10-24-11-50-04.jpg (35.7 KiB) Viewed 3526 times
2015-10-24-11-08-46.jpg
2015-10-24-11-08-46.jpg (49.13 KiB) Viewed 3526 times


Explore Scientific 152mm f6.5 achromat
Aeries D-ERF
Quark Chromosphere f27 native, (f14 when focal reduced)
Mallincam .5x focal reducer (large format)
12nm Filter
ZWO174 (IMX249 chip 5um)
Huge Sense of Adventure Viewing Creation
Starry Jack
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Re: Next version of Mod showing great promise

Post by Starry Jack »

Sorry for the huge images...my batch conversion did not shrink the dimensions.

Also, these are single image grabs rather than stacked.

Coaching welcome.


Explore Scientific 152mm f6.5 achromat
Aeries D-ERF
Quark Chromosphere f27 native, (f14 when focal reduced)
Mallincam .5x focal reducer (large format)
12nm Filter
ZWO174 (IMX249 chip 5um)
Huge Sense of Adventure Viewing Creation
Derek Klepp
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Re: Next version of Mod showing great promise

Post by Derek Klepp »

Looks good Jack


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Re: Next version of Mod showing great promise

Post by highfnum »

for single image - good


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marktownley
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Re: Next version of Mod showing great promise

Post by marktownley »

It does indeed show promise!


Image
http://brierleyhillsolar.blogspot.co.uk/
Solar images, a collection of all the most up to date live solar data on the web, imaging & processing tutorials - please take a look!
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