captured the nebula (Toronto)

Wow. I got everything to work. Thanks to Denis and Phil.

Instrument: Celestron 8-inch SCT
Mount: Vixen Super Polaris
Method: star hopping

By the time I finished fiddling and configuring, Orion had moved clear of the tree! Woo hoo. Turned off the integration, moved from Castor, and tagged Messier 42.



Focus. Steady...

Focused using only the small Oslon monitor and camcorder LCD and UW specs and Mark I Eye Ball. No focusing mask or software used. Just eyeballed it in the live view.



Now, the next steps are to see if I can get the video into a computer. We're not done yet... (These still images were made by using the "photo" feature in the camcorder, where you can snap a pic, or a frame from a movie, and then save it to the SD memory card.)

At least now I know that I can hook everything up correctly. Yeh. So, bring on the occultations!

Just have to learn how to find the target star, is all!

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Only had to make minor modifications to my first practice notes. The AV->DV option threw me for a loop. Touched up my Visio hook-up diagram.

Will need to print these up and put in occultation gear case so to have in the field. Should transfer soft copies to the netbook too.

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Some questions linger:

• How do you get the kiwi to "restart" and show the current time and long/lat?
• Can you make the kiwi text be suppressed?
• Why was there no sound on the latter part of the recording?
• How do I power the camcorder in the field? I.e. will the battery last?
• Is there more than one camcorder battery?
• Should I make or get a focusing mask?

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The focused photo of the Great Orion Nebula? North is to the right; east is up. Obviously, the Trapezium is in the centre. θ2 (theta) Orionis is the bright star immediately up and left of the Trapezium. ν (nu) Ori is near the top-right. It's in a middle of M43, of course, which is just barely detectable in the image. The camera is showing stars down to mag 9 and 10. Maybe more? 13?

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I've noticed that the SkyTools3 chip frame FOV rectangle does not match these photos. The rectangle is too small in ST3.

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Wikipedia links: Orion Nebula and the Trapezium cluster.