Saturn imaging (12th April 2009)

One image from the archives... I shot Saturn -at Vesanto in central Finland- with my C8 OTA & 2x Barlow lens. Used camera type was Philips SPC900NC. I had a lot of interference lines visible in stacked image. Periodic noise was needed to be removed with IRIS, postprocessing was done at Photoshop CS2.

Unsuccessfull moon imaging

This time I did not had a good luck... According to yellow almanac, full moon today was rising at 23:23 (in Helsinki region). I checked skies, but too much clouds on distant horizon to see the moon. I am going to attempt photography of "low moon" again, at 7th July 2009.

PC equipment updates

Since I will update my HEQ-5 mount to GoTo-option, I need a RS232 -serial connection to laptop. I have a already a USB-to-serial converter, but it only has a one serial port. So I have ordered DeLock PCMCIA -adapter card, providing 4 COM-ports. This would allow to connect a mount itself and two focusers -> one port would be still free.

Installation was pretty straightforward: plug in the card, select manually suitable drivers for win XP and final testing of card. To control panel, four COM -ports were added: