WT5L Blog
Orion Widefield
The image above is a cropped portion of a widefield shot of the bright constellation Orion as it rises behind the trees in my yard. This constellation is dominated by many bright stars including the red supergiant Betelgeuse and the blue supergiant Rigel, the most luminous star in our local region of the Milky Way with a luminosity 40,000 times that of the Sun. Also located within the boundaries of this constellation is the Great Orion Nebula star forming region cataloged as M42 and M43. Several other nebular regions are faintly visible in this short exposure.
This shot was captured early on the morning of 26 September 2009 using an unmodified Canon XSi (450D) DSLR fitted with an Olympus Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 manual focus lens. The shot is from a single 3-minute exposure at f/4 and ISO 800. The camera was piggyback-mounted to a Takahashi TSA-102S refractor riding on a polar aligned Takahashi EM-200 Temma II German Equatorial Mount. Camera control software was Maxim DL Version 5.07 and the shot was post-processed using Maxim DL and Photoshop CS3.
(Click on the link below for more information and images regarding this shot.)
Curvature Map (DSLR and TSA-102)
The image below is a graphical curvature map of the field of view “seen” by my Canon XSi DSLR when mated to my Takahashi TSA-102S refractor fitted with the Takahashi reducer and field flattener. The map is generated by “CCD Inspector” version 1.3.4 by CCDWare. According to CCDInspector documentation, “the curvature map provides a topographic map of the image surface. Different colors are assigned to various levels of focus: the darkest colors are best focus, the brightest colors — the worst focus”.
The image below is a 3-D Map of the same data:
Overall, as seen from the plots, the field is very flat with minimal focus change from the center of the chip to the corners with a 17.5% degradation. Additionally, the collimation of this refractor (off by 3.9″) is almost perfect and the train of adapters mating the camera to the scope do not introduce any appreciable tilt to the system.
2009 CQ WW RTTY Contest
The 2009 CQ Worldwide RTTY Contest was held this past weekend over the 48 hour period from 0000Z 26 September to 2400Z 27 September. The objective of this contest is for amateurs around the world to contact as many other amateurs in as many zones, countries, US states and VE areas (Canadian zones) as possible. This contest is conducted on the 3.5, 7, 14, 21, and 28 MHz bands. The mode for this contest is the digital mode, RTTY (radio teletype). As detailed below, most of my contacts (QSOs) were on the 7 and 14 MHz bands. Due to the current quiet state of the Sun, the higher frequency bands (21 and 28 MHz) were mostly unusable.
My final results for this contest were:
- Number Contacts (QSOs) : 175
- 40m (7 MHz) Band QSOs/Pts/Cty/ZN/Sec : 54/88/16/9/21
- 20m (14 MHz) Band QSOs/Pts/Cty/ZN/Sec : 106/199/29/14/30
- 15m (21 MHz) Band QSOs/Pts/Cty/ZN/Sec : 15/35/8/7/3
- Total QSOs/Pts/Cty/ZN/Sec : 175/322/53/30/54
- Score : 44,114
Auriga Widefield
The image above is a cropped portion of a widefield shot of the bright and busy constellation Auriga in the sky’s northern hemisphere. This constellation is dominated by the sixth brightest star Capella and features the Milky Way’s galactic equator running through the heart of the constellation also known as the “Charioteer”. In addition to the major stars of Auriga, this shot also captures the Messier open clusters M36, M37, and M38. (Click on the photo above to view the full-size image.)
This shot was captured early on the morning of 26 September 2009 using an unmodified Canon 450D DSLR fitted with an Olympus Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 manual focus lens. The shot is from a single 3-minute exposure at f/4 and ISO 800. The camera was piggyback-mounted to a Takahashi TSA-102S refractor riding on a polar aligned Takahashi EM-200 Temma II German Equatorial Mount. Camera control software was Maxim DL Version 5.07 and the shot was post-processed using Maxim DL and Photoshop CS3. (Click on the link below for more information and images regarding this shot.)
Hubble Space Telescope and Jupiter
Last evening (25 September 2009) I attempted to take a shot of the Hubble Space Telescope as it streaked across my southern sky. Unfortunately, several factors conspired against obtaining a better photo. First, the mount’s polar alignment was not as precise as needed so the stars/planets were somewhat “streaky” in the 150 second exposure. Also, I expected HST to travel “above” Jupiter instead of “below” it so my framing was not great. Lastly, my troubles were rewarded with cumulus clouds zipping on-shore at the critical time of the HST pass.
The image below is the result of this attempt. The bright “star” at the lower left corner is Jupiter, the streak from the middle-right to lower-left is HST, and the pink-orange blob in the upper-right is a cloud. (Click on the image to view a larger representation of this shot.)
