Astroclub Toutatis Fall/Winter observation season OPEN!

Artistic picture of 200mm (8") Reflector Telescope and Galactic object.
Credit: KTY Toutatis/S. Lamoureux

Astro-Club Toutatis here in Kustavi, Finland met on August 25, 2013  for the closure of the summer season exhibition and the opening of the Fall/winter observation season 2013-2014.

The club's duties where to clear out the exhibition part and convert the space into an office/Club room. We had the opportunity to bring in the tables, sofas, computers and other stuff needed for our remote controlling of the scope within the office.
We had an amazing clear sky this last week that permitted us to snap pictures of the night sky. We tried the remote control of the mount from our computer, but we had problems with the drivers of the USB extender. The cables are already in the ground, the mount and pier is perfect, the telescope and all works, but the computer part is not so trusty.

Galactic Forge. Blacksmith shop in our
club's backyard with the Milky Way.
Credit: KTY Toutatis/S. Lamoureux

Never the less with the mount controller (HEQ5 controller) we manage to slew and track object/stars/Moon and take shots at the same time. We took 50mm lens pictures, fish eye pictures, piggyback on the scope for tracking (longer exposure) pictures, and prime focus shooting (with and without Barlow) on the telescope.

We took a couple of pictures, but mostly we took series of pictures to be able to do short GIF animations. With Canon 550D and the software Magic Lanthern on the SD card we were able to take time lapse pictures by using the intervalometer mode of the software ML.

Have a look at our Astro Club Timelapses and animations here.




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