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Subject Just processed some Pics from my last GLP-Observatory run! Check em out!

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Original Message So we made very good progress my last tour of duty at the obs. Got the big scope all tuned up with Astronut...we did some crazy "drift alignment" that took like 2 full nights alone, but the results were worth it. The Big scope tracks and lands objects so well now that it's spooky...interupt auto-guiding for like over a half hour and we don't even lose the guide star...we moved auto-guiding off to the televue scope mounted on the side of the big meade 20" and have the one shot color SBIG cam on that and the BIG color wheel/filter Imager on the 20". It's crazy how much light that setup gathers. Point it at what looks like dark sky?...and in a few seconds exposure there are literally hundreds of stars there which the eye cannot see, but are there that the big cam can "see"...it's really pretty wild.

We also got a ton of the remote networking and gear responding via remote control and the tests after setting all that up went very well. We did run into a problem with the "Planet scope" where we got the electronic unit back from repair and it was repaired and is fine...however there were problems unknown to us within the mount, so the overall sytem still has problems. We had hoped to avoid taking the whole mount and scope down with the boom lift, but that is what we ended having to do...it's already shipped back and hopefully will be returned 100% soon and I'll head back up and reinstall it all.

So that's a quick update on the obs overall.

With most of these photos there is a process involved. Astro taught us the basics, but it is still an art as I have found. The photos from the Big Camera/Imager don't come out from it in color. The way the imaging system works is that it is black and white or monochrome. You tell the camera to take a BW photo with a "Red Filter"...actually that is a Red bypass filter and allows only the light that is red through. Then you do the same with a "Green Filter"..and a "Blue Filter"...you then take those 3 "color information" photos which are Black and white, yet all different..put them into a photo processing program and colorize each one it's correct color and then stack them into an RGB set and combine them. You then have an RGB color photo. That's the basic method...there is more to it than that as we take several exposures of each color band, stack those and we also take a full spectrum band known as "Luminance"....takes running a process on a few programs to put it all together.

So these are some that I "Processed" myself. We had the moon to deal with which was blasting light all over the place.....with the monster cam it does wash it out some because the big cam is so mega sensitive and sucks in light like a hoover..lol. So...when we get some prime imaging times?...I know we will do even better, but these are still nice IMO.

Bodes Galaxy...

The "Cocoon Nebula"

The "Bubble Nebula"

Closer up of the Bubble Nebula.

New Crab Nebula shot

Closer Crab

Orion Nebula

From the Wide Feild Televue Refractor with the color cam

Orion Nebula

Andromeda Galaxy

Pictures (click to insert)





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