Capt. Rob wrote:

On Sep 2, 1:03 pm, Donal wrote:
Capt. Rob wrote:
My camera gear bought in the last 24 months cost more than
Sloco's poor dated tub of a boat.

Have you managed to do any astrophotography
yet? ...... or have you given up?

Regards

Donal
-- www.astroimaging.org.uk



Donal, I now own a Celestron CPC-800 GPS. It's quite a machine and
I've messed around with some wide field stuff using my Nikon gear.

This is M31 over my house...single short exposure using a Nikon D300.

http://ghostlight.zenfolio.com/img/v3/p677285558-5.jpg


Very nice. I'm astonished at how little light pollution
you have. I thought that you lived near NY????

Here is a photo of the same object that I took recently.
http://www.astroimaging.org.uk/tener.../donal/M31.htm

It isn't great, but it is only 36m exposure. I'll try to get
more on it if the sky ever clears.


Now that I own a D700 I plan to really have some fun in the fall.
Other than that I've doing mostly visual work with the scope. The GPS
is amazing, allowing me to see many more objects in a session than
ever before. This is my scope...

http://ghostlight.zenfolio.com/img/v3/p883681020-5.jpg

I'm still planning to build an observatory for a 14 inch system soon,
but I have to do some landscaping for it 1st.

If you are planning to do astrophotography, then you should
not buy an expensive scope until you *really* know what you
want. Most people give up because they started with
the wrong scope(Long focal length and high F ratio).
I'm on my third scope, second mount, and third camera -
and all in only three years.


Regards

Donal
--