Friday 27 March 2009

MTV-73S85HP-EX-SW-R colour deep-sky Mintron with a Skymax 127 Maksutov




With a Skymax 127 Maksutov Cassegrain telescope and a 0.5 focal reducer, this image of The trapezium region of the Orion nebula was obtained. Astrovideo was used to sum 50 integrated frames and dark-frame correction was used.




With a x3 Televue Barlow and the frame integration turned off, Saturn was imaged and captured to DVD. Then 5000 frame AVI was captured from the DVD playback and was used to synthsise the above Image.


With a x3 Barlow and a x1.6 focal extender lens captured a larger image of Saturn, showing the versatility of this camera.




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Sunday 22 March 2009

Colour Deep-Sky MTV-73S85HP-EX-SW-R Mintron with a 10 inch f/4.8 Newtonian


M13 the great globular cluster in Hercules (60 x 256 frame-integrated images registered and summed in AstroVideo)


M57 The Ring nebula (50 x 256 frame-integrated images registered and summed in AstroVideo)


M82 using a 0.5 focal reducer and a UV/IR cut filter (50 x 256 frame-integrated images registered and summed in AstroVideo)



M3 using a UV/IR cut filter (60 x 256 frame-integrated images registered and summed in AstroVideo)





M64 The Black-eye galaxy using a 0.5 focal reducer and a UV/IR cut filter (60 x 256 frame-integrated images registered and summed in AstroVideo)

The live images were very good. Data were recorded to DVD and the images extracted from the DVD playback into a capture card.

The globular clusters M3 and M13, the planetary nebula M57 and the galaxy M64 were rather low in the sky so they should improve as the year progresses. There was also local light pollution particularly in the direction of M64.
Dark-frame subtraction with scaling was used in AstroVideo.

Saturday 7 March 2009

Testing the monochrome Mintron 23S85HC-EX-R with a Kson 135mm Newtonian reflector


A composite frame from two images synthesised from 50 integrated frames each with dark-frame subtraction
The two images were stitched together using Jon Grove's iMerge software
There was a bright half-Moon above Orion so a Neodymium moon-glow filter was used in conjunction with the 0.5 focal reducer and UV/IR cut filter.


A single frame showing what the live view was like
With a telescope of significant light-grasp, the live views become very good.


Test of Mintron 73S85HP-EX-SW-R deep-sky colour integrating Video camera with a 6" f/5 refractor




Integrated image
On March 1 I tested the Mintron 73S85HP-EX-SW-R deep-sky colour frame-integrating video camera using a 6 inch f/5 Helios achromat with a 0.5 focal reducer and a UV/IR cut filter. The live view was incredible and, unlike with an 80mm refractor, was almost as good as the image obtained by summing 100 integrated frames with dark-frame subtraction in Astrovideo.


Single frame showing what the live view looks like