Finding a Lemmon...

Trying to get some comet images using a DMK51 and a 26mm lens seems like a fun thing to do at the moment. There is some madness in this method, or visa versa. I had tried without success to get comet C/2012 T5 Bressi, it is to faint and my skies are not dark enough. But I put this test image into Flickr astrometry.net, wide FOV bressi it shows that the FOV I have with this lens is about 15x10 degrees. This means I have a big ball park to catch some thing reasonably bright.

The next good night I tried for a brighter comet, the problem being it is on the lower southern limits of my horizon, just above the garage roof. Pointed the camera at the area indicated patch of sky. The result was good. A summed image of 27x20sec frames shows comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon in the right spot, according to CDC charts.

Update - 20130127 - Using Th ED80mm and DMK51 , after some hunting around, as my scope was not properly aligned. I found C/2012 F6 Lemmon as a faint fuzzy. Got 50x19.472sec images with the gain set at 150 and gamma set at 100. A summed image from these frames is here, some ImageJ pixel pushing has been done to bring out the comet. Moving images below..

Big and Small Magellanic's

Worked out how to get the stars to show on DMK51, set the gamma to 150 and adjusted the exposure times to about 10 -20 seconds, Using a 26mm Kern Swiss lens I captured a few frames to expose the Magellanic clouds. Looking good for some of the brighter comets.

update 20130122 - further efforts to push the noise out and stars forward shows 47 Tuc using ED80mm and DMK51. Used imageJ to lower noise values.

Good Mooning....

Good Mooning.... should be said in a French accent...

Trying out a new DMK51 imager with 1600x1200 resolution. Very nice looking at the Moon through a Ed80MM telescope, used a 2x Barlow for the closer imagers. Just summed 100 frames from a recorded avi and used sharpen once in ImageJ. I tried a few stars but the noise level went through the roof, which is a problem as I want to get the current comets, Linear and Lemmon, may be pons-G if I get up early enough...not likely....8)  .