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This is a quick overview about the most important parts of our equipment we currently use. It may not seem much to you but with all the other things we have to carry with us it will completely fill a medium sized car and it takes 2 persons about 1 hour to set it up. Thank god for all the years of Sokoban training. |
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The Vixen GP-DX is probably the most popular equatorial mount in its class for astrophotography. Equipped with Astromeccanica AM-V motors, a Boxdörfer Dynostar X3 controller connected to a laptop, a Scopos Observer 62 as guidescope and Guidemaster for autoguiding, we achieve very good results even if it is a windy night. |
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Weight |
about 7kg |
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Maximum load |
about 11kg |
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Periodic Error |
±7 arc seconds according to datasheet |
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The Pentax 75 SDHF is an apochromatic refractor, fully corrected, flat fielded for photography. It's currently our main imaging scope, so most of the pictures in the gallery were taken with it. I consider it's quality excellent but not perfect because there are some slight blue halos around very bright stars. |
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Focal length |
500mm |
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Aperture |
75mm |
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Resolution |
1,55 " |
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Focal ratio |
1:6.67 |
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Weight |
about 2.2kg |
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Just plain and simple. Sometimes efficiency and accuracy does not have to be expensive.
The worm from an old EQ-1 mount was used which fitted perfectly onto the gear of an no longer used DS2144 mount ;-) |
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The ATIK 16HR is an assembled version of Artemis ART285 monochrome CCD camera. Compared to other camera manufactures, in my opinion, it offers an unbeatable price performance ratio. It's monochrome Sony ICX-285AL chip has a very low noise profile making exposures of several minutes without darkframes possible. The only down-sides: It's low resolution compared to todays DSLR cameras and it's USB1 interface.
My first light with this camera can be found in the gallery. |
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Chip |
Sony ICX285AL (monochrome) |
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Resolution |
1392x1040 |
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Depth |
16 bit |
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Pixel Size |
6.45 x 6.45 µm |
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Readout Noise |
6e- |
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Cooling |
25° below ambient temperature |
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Power consumption |
0.8 Ampere at 12V |
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Weight |
approx. 500g |
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Initially bought for ordinary daylight photography, I soon realized its potential for astronomical use by taking pictures of Jupiter and other celestial objects. Thanks to the low noise of the CMOS chip and the camera features, it's a good start into serious astrophotography.
To overcome the weak sensitivity in the astronomical important H-Alpha region, I decided that it was time to remove the infrared blocking filter. I am pleased with the results but I since I own an Atik16HR I only use it occasionally. |
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Resolution |
3520x2344 (Bayer matrix) |
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Depth |
12 bit per pixel (RAW mode) |
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More Information |
www.dpreview.com |
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The Atik16IC-HS was bought to replace my homebrew guidecam with something even more sensitive! Even at only 0.3 seconds exposure, at f8, there are always suitable guidestars in the image.
Since I prefer Guidemaster for autoguiding, I have written a plugin to support Atik and Artemis cameras. |
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Chip |
Sony ICX-424AL (monochrome) |
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Resolution |
659x494 |
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Depth |
16 bit |
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Pixel Size |
7.4x7.4 µm |
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Readout Noise |
7e- |
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Cooling |
25° below ambient temperature |
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Power consumption |
0.5 Ampere at 12V (powersource IS required) |
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Weight |
about 350g |
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It's another one of my home-brew projects, you may not recognize it but it's really a Bresser PC ocular. I have added a peltier directly on top of the imaging chip, put a CPU cooler on it and isolated everything to prevent dew problems.
I would not recommend it to anyone on earth for autoguiding purposes but with peltier cooling we can guide up to 9th magnitude stars. The incredible high noise of this camera almost completely vanishes after cooling the chip down to -10°C. |
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Chip |
HV7131R |
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Resolution |
640x480 (Bayer Matrix) |
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Depth |
8 bit per pixel |
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Pixel Size |
5.04x5x04 µm |
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Exposure |
up to 8s with peltier cooling and registry hack |
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Power consumption |
1 Ampere at 12V for the peltier |
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Designed as a replacement for a cheap Einhell power station and to be the solution to all our power-related problems (especially at sub-zero temperatures) it's one of my more successful home-brew projects ;-)
It can be equipped with allot of batteries to deliver up to 80 Amp/h (12V), but to reduce weight we usually use only as much batteries as we need for one night. Some parts of the Einhell power station were used, own circuits added to provide special voltage levels, fuses added, and labeled as radioactive (the only real radioactive component is probably just the sticker). |
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Weight |
15-45kg depending on configuration |
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Connectors |
3V, 6V, 8.1V (Canon), 9V, 3x12V, 19.2V (notebook) |
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Radiation |
less than 2.5mSv (millisievert) per year |
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