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)
(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 instrumentationA labeled version
(What a mess...)
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
The Bubble Nebula in Cassiopeia
Monday, April 22, 2013
I need more space
I made a small poster, just for a fun.
Couple of versions
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 HERE. The 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
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
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.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
A new poster out of the images from a season past
The Winter season 2012-2013 starts to be over up here 65N. We'll loose dark nights for about six months, due to high latitude. Past Winter was kind of cloudy but since my observatory locates next to my home, I was able to use nearly every clear moment during the Winter.
Image count is relatively high since many of the images are just finalized in this season and there have been material from past years to continue to work with. I have published 24 new images ( Plus color and other versions of them.)
Beside traditional astronomical images, I have done some experimental work by adding a volumetric information to my images. My 3D-work gets widely published by several medias, like Wired magazine, Smithsonian Institute magazine, PetaPixel and many many others.
Beside traditional astronomical images, I have done some experimental work by adding a volumetric information to my images. My 3D-work gets widely published by several medias, like Wired magazine, Smithsonian Institute magazine, PetaPixel and many many others.
At end of the year 2012, one of my experimental 3D-images was selected as one of The Best Astronomical Images of 2012 by the astronomer Phil Plait.
Collection of my images from the Winter season 2012-13
Be sure to click for a full scale image, 1920x2800 pixels and 4.5 MB
A HD 1080p movie from images above in
images are in chronological order
Photos of instruments, used for images above, can be seen
All of my astronomical art can be found from my
My telescope is not a pretty boy but it works
Please, click HERE to see my gears and info about them.
Examples of my experimental 3d-work
Movies and GIF-animations
3D-images in different formats
parallel and cross vision free view, anaglyph Red/Cyan 3D
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