This is one of my scopes that I use from time to time. Its a relatively fast 800mm, F/4 optical arrangement. When tuned it produces great images. Trouble is, its hard to tune. But, not impossible. In addition to the scope, there’s a 500mm, F/5 achromatic telescope mounted on top and is used for guiding.
The laptop is used to control the telescope mount, control the cameras and do the guiding.
Ok, I managed to get a shot of Comet Panstarrs despite the moon and lingering twilight. At least you see the comet. Somewhat. lol
It was a little difficult to shoot images and entertain visitors simultaneously. Its a long story, but suffice it to say that by the time I was finally shooting images, the comet was already deep in the muck. In fact, it was there by the time it got dark enough to shoot long exposures.
Oh, well… at least I didn’t scratch. 🙂
I was just playing around here. The nearly full moon was so bright that it allowed only very short exposures.
I struck out trying to image Comet Panstarrs on Sunday evening, March 24, 2013. It was just too short of a time to find it in bright twilight, bright moonlight and with its low altitude. However, I tried something to redeem myself while I still had the equipment setup. I shot the Pleiades with a bunch of 15 second unguided exposures. I managed to catch them and Comet C/2012 L2 (Linear) in the shot. This is cropped down quite a bit to just the cluster and comet.
By the way, the comet is in the lower right. Its that small greenish smudge. 🙂
It was predicted to be clear on March 20, 2013 when I took the above picture. However, a low bank of clouds moved in at the last moment and messed up my plans to shoot Comet Pan-STARRS with the Canon 200mm F/2.8 telephoto lens for a wide-angle view. The mount wasn’t tracking very well, either and I wasted quite a few shots because of that issue. So, the only good image of the comet came through a crack in the clouds.
A more formal presentation of the image data I captured the evening of March 16, 2013 (Mar 17, UT.)