For many years now I have been using an Atik16ic for imaging and capturing deep sky object's to process and then store away on a DVD. At the end of the day all you have are a lot of pretty picture's that look nice, but at the end of the day that's all they are, picture's. And together with the problems involved with imaging, I was beginning to find it very stressful and it was slowly becoming less enjoyable with every session.
I've been looking at the work of members of the Webb Deep Sky Society, whom I am a member off, who are using video cameras and drawing what they see.
I would like to get back to basics and draw what I am looking at, using my Atik16ic and my 8" F4 Newtonian from home and my OD250 10" when away from home. The big advantage with using my CCD from home; it cuts through light pollution and acts as an electronic eye. And allows me to still look at deep sky objects.
One other advantage of doing this, you don't have to worry if you're stars are slightly elongated with each CCD image, due to a poorly miss aligned mount.
Last night as I said, the skies did eventually clear, and I got out and took the cover of my Losmandy G11, and soon had it fired UP and slewing, with my 8 inch f4 "AG" to the field where messier 57was.
It is remarkable how sensitive the CCD is over the human eye. With the exposure's set to 60 seconds, M57 was very clear and sharp with it's magnitude 13 central star clearly visible. The camera is UN-filtered except for a IR-block filter.
Despite the short exposures last night. I think that I was seeing stars between magnitude 13 and magnitude 14, whilst with the unaided eye I was lucky to see magnitude 3.5.
Below is my drawing made at 19:07ut.
I found this way to be very relaxing and enjoyable night. And I certainly hope to do this again and again.
I would have made some more, but as is the norm, it clouded over shortly afterwards and I packed UP muttering to myself.
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