ETX70 Deep Sky....

Forget the fact that the low end CCD camer (SBIG ST5C) is 4 times the cost of the scope.... Here is the start of my Messier objects ETX70 collection, done just for the heck of it.



M42 Great Orion Nebula
30sec (3X10secTA)




M13 Great Cluster in Hercules
25sec (5X5secTA)



This next photo is the bottom of Lyra. This was taken at prime focus, Fuji Superia800 filem, polar aligned, 2 minute exposure, no tracking! If you know your star map, you can see this picture reaches up into magnitude 11 and that the ring nebula is visible.


Base of Lyra
M57




This was taken at prime focus, Fuji Superia800 filem, polar aligned, 1 minute exposure, no tracking.


Orion Nebula





This was taken at prime focus, Fuji Superia800 filem, Alt-Az aligned (evident by poor tracking), 1 minute exposure, no tracking.


M20 & M8





Awaiting first light! Using a new .0003lux video camera mounted on a Quantaray 500mm Mak lens, initial guiding results look promising! First pictures of simple star patters were dead on after 5minute trackings. Will have to wait for a good night for live testing on deep sky, but will post results as soon as I do! Should put all previous photos above to shame...


Tracking Setup





First Light! This is a crop-n-zoom of a prime focus, nebular filter, 5 minute tracking on Fuji Superia 800 film. Compare to the Orion nebula above, notice how well the track kept the stars centered...


Orion Nebula