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CCD project - 2000 October 20

I met Rob Niber at Mickey Gordon, and the weather cooperated by being clear all night, although the transparency wasn't great, with some moisture and dew. But the dew heaters kept the optics dry, and we imaged from around 8 until 2. Here's what Rob had to say:

"It was very educational. Craig showed me how to use the CCD software, navigate the scope, focus the camera, calibrate the CCD for the sky conditions, remove noise from the image, and play with the captured images to bring out more contrast and such. Lots of fun. I was very impressed with our first image (M13). In just seconds we had an image that looked to me as good as what I see in magazines.

"At one point, Stew had me look at a little NGC fuzzy in his scope (4.5" refractor, I believe)... you could definitely tell it was there with averted vision. But a few moments later using the CCD, we had a great image of it.... a beautiful edge on spiral galaxy with a dust lane. (NGC 891) I had to ask Craig how he could go back to visual observation after collecting such great views so quickly.

"Other than the lengthy setup to put the system together, imaging is quick and navigating around with a goto is easy. Really unbelievable images (I'm easily impressed)."

NGC 891, edge-on spiral galaxy. 60 second exposure.