Dunfermline Astronomical Society

Hello everyone! I have decided to try my hand at blogging and have put my thoughts and actions to paper (albeit electronic) for all the world to see.

Just lately I got hold of a Mintron 12V6HC-EX CCTV camera and linked it up to my Meade LX90 8inch SCT to see what I could achieve. Just to put you in the picture I recently built a small observatory in my back garden. My garden being south facing is ideal for obseving with fairly clear views from east-south-west with just the north being obscured by the lift up roof on my observatory.  The Scope is not mounted on a pier but on the heavy duty Tripod and the floor being raised off the ground flexes slightly if you move about so long exposure deep sky imaging is a deffinate no!

The Mintron seemed like a good bet so that's the road I chose. Trying to get info on how to set it up was a bit like having teeth pulled until, I came across the excellent sights by Dr. Steve Wainwright at  : http://x-bit-astro-imaging.blogspot.com/ and the excellent GStar (which I assume is a rebranded Mintron) site at: http://www.myastroshop.com.au/guides/gstar/index.htm#GSTAR-CAPTURE%20USER%20GUIDE

Both of these sites have a wealth of information, you just have to try to piece it all together and hope for the best. The Gstar software works a treat with the Mintron and I will let you know if I get the cable to work to control the camera settings remotely. Here's hoping.

Anyway last night 24/08/2009 I got some reasonably clearish kind of skies and I say reasonably because this summer has been terrible in Scotland! month after month of cloudy,rainy skies :(

So I got the scope nearly aligned and being anxious and impatient to get going and set the camera to Jupiter. The image was too bright so I turned the sense down and got a nice big disc and the four Gallilean moons no probs However no detail on the disc (still too bright) I assume this is a filter issue and will try to address this on later nights. I captured a short AVI and moved on to M57  WOW!!!  A nice big ring and the central star which I have never seen before even with my 12 inch Dobsonian!