The Orion Nebula taken Dec 2006

[dmill1220]

Hi Folks,

Although I have photographed this object several times, I never get tired of trying it every year, this year I plan on trying it with my 12 inch dob on a Titan mount.

For this shot I used my Celestron C8 SCT on a Eq wedge, with a Radial offset guider and a 9mm Illuminated Reticule eyepiece for manual guiding.
For the camera I used my old 35 MM Pentax ME camera with a manual cable release and a roll of Fuji ASA 1600. ( very hard to find now)

The total exposure was 14 minutes of nerve racking manual guiding, The conditions were as about as best as it gets for Northern New England,
I had the Kendricks Dew shield and my Dew controller going strong.

I had made my own dew heater strip to keep the camera warm. while those 14 minutes seemed like an eternity I think it was worth the effort.

Dennis

[Darryl]

Hi Dennis,

I am impressed. Very nice shot. Just goes to show you what skill and patience can do.

Please upload this to the gallery.

Regards,

[dmill1220]

Hi Darryl,

Thank you for your kind comments, I wish I still had all of the negatives from my old 35mm days

I definitely started out old school with astrophotography, I dont use this setup very often any more just because of the wedge and it's lack of fine tuning, that really makes it hard to drift align easily, plus the hassle of having to drive far for the right speed film, and acquiring an alignment star with a Radial offset guider, it's not as easy as it sounds, and then the wait for the processing, not to mention bracketing my exposures etc; etc; CCDs are so much easier and cheaper after the initial expense!

what I should probably do is remove that OTA from its fork Arms, and mount a dovetail bar on that 8 inch SCT, and drop it right on top of my CG5 ASGT, but that is home right now for my shorter focal length C6R, I have had this Celestron C8 SCT for a very long time, its mounted on Celestron's extra heavy duty tripod and EQ wedge, It was my first Imaging set up before the days of Computers and CCD's.
Its now mostly used only for visual observing.

I should see if I can salvage some of my older 35mm shots and get them scanned for processing, but most of them all got wet in the last flash flooding we had where I live in Raymond NH, we were completely isolated for 4 days, all roads and bridges were out, my 35mm photo albums and a few other belongings that were being stored in my backyard garage fell victim to that event.

Dennis