First Light with the OES AlphaMini

Last Update: 12 March 2003

System is ready, but bad weather all time ...

In December I purchased a used CCD camera made by OES Fleischmann. This replaces the LcCCD07 I have sold quite a while ago. It does not require a separate PC card and I can operate the camera on the parallel port of my notebook. I made my first experience with this camera now and the results look very promising. Image aquisition with the AMT Windows program did not work, but I could use my old DOS notebook with good success with the OES program.

I am in touch with the author of AMT (www.hofwarte.de). Hopefully the problems will be solved. The AstroArt2.0 Demo works also with the camera.

Image processing with IRIS 3.80 and AIP4WIN. Final touch with Photoshop5LE.

The image shows the camera ALPHA MINI with a 1:2.8 135mm lens attached.

	M51 Instrument: Refractor 102m 102mm f=1000mm focal mode / forgot IR filter Film:' Exposure time: 7*180 sec with dark field subtraction Date: 15 February 2003 2311 CET Note: Even with bright moonlight my first good deepsky image in medium resolution mode. No flatfield correction made so far, as I do not have a flatfield box. Guiding has not been perfect.
	Alkor and Mizar Instrument: Refractor 102m 102mm f=1000mm focal mode / forgot IR filter Film: Resulution: 385 * 286 pixel (binning 2) Exposure time: 180 sec with dark field subtraction Date: 15 February 2003 2258 CET Note: My first long exposure. Mizar in UrsaMajor is the left *double* star, Alkor is to the right. The bright star in the middle is about mag 9.
	Jupiter and the four Galilean Moons Instrument: Refractor 102m 102mm f=1000mm focal mode / forgot IR filter Film: Resulution: 385 * 286 pixel (binning 2) Exposure time: 1 sec with dark field subtraction Date: 15 February 2003 2228 CET Note: After trying to image Jupiter with eyepiece projection, where I did not succeed, I took this image as first image through a telescope with the AlphaMini.
	Alpha Mini First Light Instrument: f=1:1.7 50mm Film: Resulution: 385 * 286 pixel (binning 2) Exposure time: 1 * 60 sec with dark field subtraction Date: January 2003 Note: image made through a quite dirty closed window ...

All photos are Copyright © of C.Petermann DF9CY

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