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Showing posts with label equipments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label equipments. Show all posts

Monday, January 13, 2020

The Frankenstein monster, my current imaging setup


First time at this Winter season 2019-20 I have a clear sky and somehow functional imaging system.
I managed to mate Apogee Alta U16 + filter wheel with my old second hand Tokina AT-x 300mm f2.8 camera lens.
Lots of self made mechanical tweaks was needed to make this work out.. (I used even an angle grinder to cut off ”unnecessary” parts of the lens to have correct back focus distance)

The result looks more like a Frankenstein monster. It’s alive!!!


"New" imaging setup


Apogee Alta U16 with a filter wheel and Tokina AT-x f2.8 camera lens n th 10-micron 1000 mount. 






The focusing system is build around the TCF-s focuser. Focusing is done by a spring loaded round metal file over the focusing ring. This is a very accurate autofocusing system and it's temperature compensating too.




Shortening the lens, bajonet and aperture control ring are removed and I'm just about to cutting off the filter holder area.  The current imaging system is kind of crazy combination. Actually it shouldn't work at all but with a angle grinder and self made adapter I was able to mate Tokina AT-x 300mm f2.8 optics to Apogee Alta U16 camera and filter wheel. There is also a temp compensating focusing system made from TCF-s focuser, L-shape metal from an old table, round metal file and a spring from an old desk lamp. The CCD is very large, over 36 x 36 mm but for some reason the lens can lit the whole area with a very little coma at most outer corners. 




Self made adapter for the Apogee filter wheel attached.



Original untouched lens.


First light photo for this system


First light image, IC 1396. Since the Apogee Alta U16 has a very large square CCD, the Tokina lens has a very hard time to draw good stars at very outer corners. The system is very picky about he correct back focus distance and the tilt since the critical focus zone at f2.8 is just over 10 metric microns. I did crop out narrow zones from left and right to have perfect star shapes over the area.



Image analysis with CCDinspector
Click for a large image

This works way better than I thought! The whole oversize CCD is lit, there are some coma at corners but it'll be easy to crop out by removing narrow areas from left and right or from up and bottom.

Image of the full uncropped frame 
(reduced 50% due to large size) 





Monday, August 15, 2016

New imaging season about to start



The mandatory Summer pause will be over soon. We'll have astronomical darkness again at September 5. up here 65N. After that, I'll be able to shoot some new material. 

I have made a poster format collection out of my images, with different instruments. Photos are shot between 2005 and 2016. An average exposure time per photo is around 25h. The actual exposure times varies between10 to 150 hours.

My photos between years 2005 and 2016.
Images in four posters are shot with different instruments. 
Please, click the posters to see them in full scale!


Images shot with Canon EF 200mm f1.8 camera lens.
QHY9 astrocamera and the Baader narrowband filters

Info and image details for each photo can be found from HERE


Images shot with Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 camera lens.
QHY9 astrocamera and the Baader narrowband filters

Info and image details for each photo can be found from HERE


Images shot with Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ ~f6 telescope.
QHY9 astrocamera and the Baader narrowband filters




Images shot with Celestron Edge HD 1100 telescope.
Apogee Alta U16 and Astrodon narrowband filters









Monday, October 6, 2014

A new imaging setup starts to build up.



At beginning of the last Spring season my old imaging setup blew up

During a mandatory Summer pause I have been building a new imaging set up little by little. It starts to be ready mechanically, I need to wait for a couple of clear nights to be able to finalize the setup procedure. 

Without a help from couple of great companies this could be a mission impossible for me.



I have got the most needed help from the beloved neighbour country, Sweden! The Astro Sweden is a largish company specialized to astronomical equipments. They have support my work by equipments and technical knowhow.


Starlight Xpress CCD

I have been using many years some very clever products from the UK based company, Starlight Xpress .
I now have a new Active Optics unit from them, it supports full frame CCD cameras. With the AO-unit I'm using an OAG with the ultra sensitive guider, Lodestar X2. I used to have a smaller version of the AO-unit and Lodestar guider for many years. They really turn any poorly tracking mount to a extremely stable imaging platform. Best of all, the AO-unit works with any third party imaging camera, like the Apogee in my case.


New Setup
click for a large image


Light path

The Active Optics Unit from Starlight Xpress CCD  is attached to a large custom made adapter ring at right.

List of new equipments
  • Mount, 10-micron 1000
  • Optics, Celestron Edge HD 1100
  • Camera, Apogee U16 D09 with KAF16803 chip, 4096x4096 9 microns pixels, 36,8x36,8mm 
  • Filter Wheel, Apogee, seven square slots 50x50mm 
  • Focuser, FeatherTouch with MicroTouch control unit 
  • Heater, Dew Buster 
  • Active Optics Unit, SXV AO LF from Starlight Xpress + OAG 
  • Guider, an ultra sensitive Lodestar X2, also from Starlight Xpress 
  • Focal Reducer, Celestron reducer 0.7 for Edge 1100 (Not yet arrived) 
  • Finder, Telrad 
  • Filters, Astrodon, H-alpha 5nm, O-III 3nm, S-II 3nm. R, G, B and L
I need to wait for a clear weather to be able to finalize the setup. Few things must be done before any imaging is possible. 


To do list

  1. Polar alignment, The axis of the telescope must be exactly parallel to Earth axis 
  2. Collimation, the optical axis must be perfectly concentric 
  3. Fine tune any possible tilt in CCD to have it perfectly perpendicular to light path. 
  4. FocusMax training, ~30 V-curves to have an accurate model of the optical behavior for auto focusing. 
  5. Temperature compensation training, so that temp expansion of the optics can be compensated.



Friday, January 31, 2014

It's over, I cant do my loved astronomical imaging anymore



Sad news, my old Meade LX200 GPS 12" telescope gave up and died.

Two nights ago, when I was imaging, my telescope stopped tracking and gave an error message "Motor Stalled".
It turned to be a fatal problem, the control board of Ra motor was fried. There is no way to fix it myself, the board has several layers and lots of microscopic components. This is a very old scope and it has been under a heavy usage in a very extreme weather conditions. Replacement parts are very hard to find, since this telescope is not manufactured any more. Even if I managed to have needed parts, it'll take the rest of the season to put all up and running again.

This instrument has been way below my level as an astronomical photographer for a years. Lots of desperate looking DIY solutions was used to make this old scope work as a some kind of imaging platform. I really need a new mount and a better optics. 

I can't afford to buy any new instruments, it looks like my days are over now. I'm not going to buy any second rate stuff, I'll rather be without, than start fighting against constant malfunctions ones again. I have spent countless hours outside, soldering some bad connectors, in a freezing wind and a bellow -20 centigrade temperatures to fix my scope, not any more. 

The only way to solve this is trying to find a sponsor. It won't be easy and it might never happen. 

An update, February 02. 2014

After a careful study of damages in my scope, I found out, that not only the Ra motor controller card was toasted. Also the motherboard, Ra motor and its encoder are burned and partly smelted too. This means, that the whole system is beyond repair, least with any reasonable costs. 


Images, taken with this deceased scope can be seen HERE.


A collection of images with the Meade LX200 GPS 12" telescope, Baader narrowband filters and the QHY9 astronomical camera
(Be sure to click the image to see it in full scale)









Tuesday, April 23, 2013

An other collection of images, Meade LX200 GPS 12"




My main instrument is an old Meade LX200 GPS 12" telescope. With lots of tweaking, it works as an imaging platform. An original fork mount has a largish periodic error but I'm using the Starlight Express active optics unit, LXV-AO, with it . With an AO-unit, the tracking error is more or less zero. Since I'm using the QHY9, with kind of small diameter CCD-shell, as my imaging camera I have reduced the original f10 scope down to f5 it gives me an effective resolution of about 0.8 arc seconds/pixel. It's done by "misusing" the Celestron f6.3 reducer by adding some extra distance to recommended 110mm. There is some light coma at the corners but I can live with it for now.


A collection of images with the Meade LX200 GPS 12" telescope, Baader narrowband filters and the QHY9 astronomical camera
(Be sure to click the image to see it in full scale)

All the images in this poster can be found from my PORTFOLIO, with some technical details.

A labeled version


The instrumentation
(What a mess...)

More images and info about instruments in HERE

I'm using two camera lenses, with the Meade, the Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 can be seen in the image above. Canon EF 200mm f1.8 is my second camera lens for the astrowork.
Image collections with both lenses can be seen in HERE.

Couple of my favorite images with Meade LX200 12" telescope

A two frame mosaic of IC 1805, the Melotte 15 area

More information in HERE

The Bubble Nebula in Cassiopeia








Sunday, April 21, 2013

A collection of images, Canon EF 200mm f1.8 optics



I have couple of high quality camera lenses for astronomical imaging, Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 and Canon EF 200mm f1.8.  Both lenses are wonderful instruments for an astronomical work, I always use them both full open. 

Focusing under a  fast f-number is very difficult task due to extremely narrow critical focus zone (At f1.8 the critical focus zone is around 7 microns, 7/1000mm) I have build an automatic focusing system for all camera lenses, images of it can be seen HERE and HEREThe system also compensates the temperature drift.

An other challenge is orthogonality between CCD-shell and optics. With slower optics this is not much a problem but with extremely fast optics a micron scale accuracy is needed. I have done hundreds of iterations with the CCDInspector  software to have my Canon EF 200mm f1.8 optics perpendicular with QHY9 camera. NOTE! There is nothing wrong with any mechanical part in a camera or the lens, the needed accuracy is just so high, that micron scale errors are seen, for example a protective glass over the CCD-array has a manufacturing  tolerance of 1/100mm and that's enough to course problems in orthogonality. (Well... I'm kind of perfectionist and most photographers doesn't see any problems with fast optics, I do.)


A collection of  my images with the Canon EF 200mm f1.8 optics
Images are shot between  2009-2012

Be sure to click the image larger! Note, a large file ~6MB

Canon EF 200mm f1.8

Canon EF lens Modification for the astronomical use

Since the Canon EF 200mm f1.8 lens is electronically focused and I'm using it without Canon camera body, I had to modified the lens to it to work. Be warned, the modification image series, behind the link HERE, is not for a weak minded persons!!!

Lens in use

Largest work with the Canon lens
A 18-panel mosaic of constellation Cygnus

More information and images of this project can be seen HERE.


Cygnus mosaic in frames

More info about the framed photo:



A collection of  my images with the Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 optics
Images are shot between  2008-2011

Be sure to click the image larger!
I have made a collection of Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 image as well. Images are partly over lapping with the canon collection, since I have used both instruments, Canon and Tokina, to collect the data.





Sunday, September 23, 2012

My equipment



I'm shooting my astronomical images from downtown Oulu. This is my collection of  gears needed for my astroimaging. Canon EF 200mm camera lens can't be seen in images here.

This is a new combination from old gears. Now I'm able to shoot with two cameras at ones! QHY9 is used for longer focal length work  with my old Meade LX200 GPS 12" telescope at about f5. QHY8, a cooled single shot color imager, is used with Tokina AT- X 300mm camera lens for wide field work.
Now I can have both, a closeup and a wide filed images, from same target at same time. I'll test, if color information from QHY8 camera can be used with images taken by QHY9 camera.

As you can see, I don't have any fancy gears for my work.
Not a pretty boy...

Lots of cords. They might look unorganized but I can sure you, there is a system.

Same image labeled



Light path from the telescope to camera. There is an active optics unit at middle. (SXV-AO)



Counterweight, Meade fork mount and the dew heater control box at right.



The other side of the scope. 
The ugly yellow fabric, at top, works as an insulation for the 
heater stripe at front of the QHY8 camera. It's heated due the frost.

Images taken with Meade LX200 GPS 12" telescope



Images taken with Tokina AT-X 300mm camera lens

Monday, September 12, 2011

Couple of image collections with very different instruments, Tokina 300mm camera lens and the Meade LX200 GPS 12" telescope 3000mm



Images taken with a Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 camera lens

Images are in HST-palette from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen & B=Oxygen. 
Note. Images in this poster are not in same scale.

All images in this collection can be found from my portfolio, with technical details:

Tokina AT-X 300mm camera lens is an excellent astrolens!
Here is a blog post about the lens and the first light for it:

Tokina lens at top of the Meade LX200 GPS 12" telescope, it's a large lens with the dew shield attached.



A collection of images taken with a Meade LX200 GPS 12" 3000mm f10 telescope, forced to work at ~f5.



Most of the images are in HST-palette from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen & B=Oxygen. Red ones are in natural narrowband colors. Note. Images in this poster are not in same scale.

All images in this collection can be found from my portfolio, with technical details:

My old Meade LX 200 GPS12" telescope, on its original fork mount, is not a perfect instrument for astronomical imaging. I have managed to get it work like a real imaging platform, not an easy task though.
Great help is an active optics unit, SXV-AO, from Starlight express. (UK based company)

Imaging bath, more info in this blog post:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2009/09/active-otics-and-meade-lx200-gps-12.html

All the images above are shot from my city center observatory, under a heavy light pollution.
The narrowband imaging is must under my conditions. Dark place is better naturally,  now I'm able to use every cloudless moment, unlike with an observatory in distant dark location.



Thursday, February 11, 2010

Astro photographing in Finland

This it is...
Lots of snow and clouds in winter 2010.

I bet, if I'll start to shoot snow and clouds, we dont see them anymore.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Active otics and Meade LX200 GPS 12"

I have made some experiments wirh SXV-AO and QHY9.
Since QHY9 has a very small pixels, 5,4microns, there will be serious over sampling with LX200.
I do have a f6.3 reducer/flattener but even eith f6.3 image scale is oversampled.
I tested to increase the distance between QHY9 and a reducer, it seems that I'm able to
go up to f4.65 focal lenght by this method!
There is some wignetting, but not very serious. Some distortion with stars can be seen in outer corners, but I'm able to live with that.
I didn't think it's possible to turn f10 telescope toreltively fast f4.65 scope.
QHY9 has a lightly smaller chip than APS-size in QHY8, that heps a litle.

Images, taken with this imaging configuration, can be seen here:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/search/label/Images%20with%20Active%20Optics%20%28SXV-AO%29
Click "Older Posts" at the end of the page to see more.


Thursday, February 12, 2009

A POD

As seen in the image, my Observatory locates in very light polluted location.
I bought this observatory dome from Ian - Altair Astro UK.
The POD (Persomnal Observatory Dome) is manufactured by a
Canadian company, SkyShed Obsevatories,
After long thinkikg I ended up to this model.
Mainly becouse there was much good feed back about the system.
the other reason was the reasonable price and easy assembly.
Becouse I'm imaging from midle of the town, the outlook of the tower is important too.
I don't want people to complain about ugly shed in the roof deck in the midle of town.
(It's clearly visible to the opposite park)
Inside the dome, there is a 12" Meade LX200GPS on the 700mm steal pier
and lots of assesories.
Even though, there is plenty of space to walk around the scope.
-
The model of the observatory is somewhere between traditional dome and roll off shed.
I have tested it under cloudy sky and it will give a really good protection against winds.
An other great thing is, that now I can just close the dome and leave everythin ready for the next imaging session.
-
In this type of observatory, there is a problem with imagingn directly to the Zenith.
I solved this problem by a simple modification.
Instead placing telescope pier off center, I made the whole dome to slide away
to clear the Zenith view.
When access to the Zenith is not needed the dome can be pulled back to maximize
the wind protection.
In this image the slideing system is visible. It's a very simple solution where slit
in the plywood works as a guide and everything can be locked down by a wing nut attached to an
anchor bolt.

In near future I will attach six wheels under the dome to make it move smoothly.

In above image is a principle, how standard furniture whells will be placed.

Main dimensions of the POD ( Inches)