Novices test digital astro-imaging

Friends:

I just posted a new article on our "Eyepiece" telescope program
website, about our first experiments using digital imagers to get
pictures of the Moon and Mars. The article may offer some
inspiration, and perhaps even help, to beginners, like us, who are
primarily visual astronomers but who occasionally dabble in
astrophotography.

See:
http://home.earthlink.net/~steve_waldee/digital/digital.htm

The article is based on pictures taken with Meade LSI and DSI CCD
imagers using a lowly Orion ST80 ("ShorTube") 80 mm refractor, as well
as our new Celestron GPS-11 goto scope.

We proved to ourselves that as long as one knows how to use a
telescope, the simple and nearly foolproof Meade LSI (Lunar-Planetary
Imager) can extract a usable image to even an obsolete old PC.

Our best Moon picture isn't too bad; but our Mars is frankly
substandard (the seeing was terrible early this morning, so we'll
blame THAT and not our novice-incompetence!)

This gave me the opportunity to add some hitherto-unseen "new" old
images to our main Eyepiece telescope program home page, taken from
the program: a couple of excellent astrophotos by Ron Wood, done years
ago with the 30" reflector at Fremont Peak, and some charts from our
program.

So, in conclusion: astro beginners, take heart! Digital imaging is
likely to be even easier and more rewarding than standard
astrophotography. We had the temerity to send our best Moon shot to
our friend Chuck Vaughn, who reciprocated with the link to the page
for his latest efforts with his brand-new Canon 20Da: whew! So, after
peeping at our tyro efforts, troll over for some pix by a world-class
expert! (Don't MISS his fantastic M-45!)

See:
http://astrophotography.aa6g.org/Astronomy/astrophotos.html

Best,
Regina Roper - Roper Piano Studio, and Waldee-Wood Astronomical
Software
"Still often DOS'in after all these years"
Main Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~steve_waldee/
.

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