Image of M101

[Darryl]

I just uploaded an image of M101 into the gallery. I captured this a couple of weeks ago. I have finally got my scope guiding properly (after a bit of a hardware upgrade ). I got a descent dove-tail plate. Its the Losmandy DM10 http://www.losmandy.com/secondary.html#DM. Its rock solid and doesn't flex when I mount my Skywatcher ED80 refractor on the Meade LX200. I use the Losmandy DR 125 ring set, to mount the ED80 on the dove-tail plate (found lower on the page of the above link). The ED80 is used as the guide scope at the moment with the Meade DSI Pro as the guide camera and the Canon 20d as the main camera.

So much fun...

[Diana]

Wow....! Those are some very impressive pics Darryl.......

All three pictures were just beautiful....!





Diana

[ozzmoziz]

nice pic darryl , let me ask you how the dsi , is it worth the bucks and wondering do you have the color one or b/w?

[Darryl]

Originally Posted by ozzmoziz

nice pic darryl , let me ask you how the dsi , is it worth the bucks and wondering do you have the color one or b/w?

It's the DSI Pro, which is the monochrome version. Its 4 time more sensitive than the DSI (color). There is a new DSI II (color) and DSI Pro II (monochrome) out now http://www.meade.com/dsi_ii/index.html.

[stuart]

Very cool. Where are you located? As in how much light pollution is around you?

[Dragon Star]

Wonderful shots!

[Darryl]

Originally Posted by stuart

Very cool. Where are you located? As in how much light pollution is around you?

I am on Vancouver Island. 48 47 North 123 42 West. I can't say I can give an exact visual limiting magnitude as I never really bothered to check but the band of the milky-way is quite visible on a clear transparent night. I have a couple of street lights that put some light into my backyard. The city in my immediate vicinity (Duncan, BC) has a core population of about 5000 and puts up a small dome of light, but not much, though with the way its growing I am beginning to get concerned. The immediate area around me including Duncan has a population of about 31,000.