As one grows older "first time" things become more rare and of course more meaningful. Most of you know (or will quickly figure out) that I like to do astronomy stuff. The problem is that there is never enough time in the day (I mean night) to really enjoy it. Either it's cloudy, or I am just too damn tired to stand outside all night pushing the shutter release on my camera. Recently, I "paid" myself for doing some odds and ends around the house. My reward was to get a new telescope just for imaging. I ended up getting what I call a "baby scope". It has an apeture of 80mm (3.15in.) and focal length of 600mm (f7.5) APO - "a glorified telephoto lens", that I have mounted "piggy-back" on top of big brother, the 3556mm (14in.) apeture. See pic (not my pic but you should get the idea). After several weeks of cloudy nights, the last weekend in January, I was able to set it up, and open the telescope for its "first light". I spent a good while looking around at things that are familiar before I stuck the old 300D into the eyepiece hole. After some focusing and goofing around I thought I would try my luck at the elusive horse head nebula. I knew about where it was in the sky, I had just never seen it with my own eyes. I scanned the sky over and over but could not see it using the BIG scope so I set the timer and started a 3 minute exposure at ISO 800 ...tic... ...toc... ...tic... ...toc... ...tic... ...toc... I downloaded the image to my notebook, and .... nothing! Again, I hit the shutter..... I could see stars abundant as can be but no horsehead. I checked my star charts, scooted the scope over a bit and tried again. This time I shot 5 consecutive 3 minute exposures. I figured that could post process the images and sum the data by stacking each picture. About a half hour later..... POOF! there it the sneaky little horsehead along with the neighbouring "Flame" nebula. WOOT! I had done it! No it's not a Hubble pic, but I am damn proud of it and thought I would share it with you... I converted it to B&W to help out with the contrast.
WOW.. Nice! You might want to check this out. http://www.breezesys.com/DSLRRemotePro/index.htm That way you can control the DSLR from the notebook itself.
I use a similar software called DSLRFocus. http://http://www.dslrfocus.com/ along with a home made cable that uses the pc's serial port. The USB cable only allows a max 30 sec exposures. With serial or paralell cable exposure time is unlimited. the software also talks to you as exposure time progresses. The "Big" one's focal length is 3556mm (~140 in.)
ah. that's even more cool! The only way to get the D70 to 'shutter-lock' is the use the bulb mode with a remote control shutter. haha. But what i love with these software is the time lapse capability!
