Friday, November 30, 2012

Mobile Astrophotography kit v1.0

I've been trying to put together a compact yet very usable astrophotography rig for a while now. I think I have finally put together a version I am finally pretty happy and excited about.
 It all fits in this medium size camera bag.

 And here it all is. It consists of:
- Canon EOSM
- Canon 55-250mm zoom
- Bower 8mm
- Canon EOSM 22mm f2 lens
- Canon Infrared remote
- Vixen Polari Star Tracker
- Manfrotto Table Tripod
- Celestron StarPointer finder scope
- 3d printed hot shoe mount for the finder scope

 Here it is all setup with the 55-250mm zoom.

 And in 3D just because -:]

 
 And another view.

 And another 3D image -:[]

 I managed to test the new setup just before clouds and rain hit. I had about 20min on our roof to setup, adjust and take some pictures.

Here is a crop of the image. Not to bad for a quick test on a windy roof in a bright city. I'm excited to take this setup all  over the place in the coming months to see if I can get better at using it.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Sunday Morning Sun

Got up this morning and saw the sun coming up and decided to break out the solar scope. Worked out a few issues I have been having and managed to take a higher res image. At some point maybe I'll work out how to focus better with this little scope. Still I'm pretty happy with the images I am getting with this $60 scope that came with a solar filter.
 This first image is about 2x the resolution of the one bellow. Click on them to see the difference. I like them both so I'm putting them both up.
 

Monday, November 12, 2012

It's Spotty

Testing out a new camera on a near by star.