Here's a shot of three prominent craters - Theophilus, Cyrillus, and Catharina (from left to right) - that I took on Friday night using the ASH 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain, a 32mm Brandon (eyepiece projection), and my Canon EOS Digital Rebel DSLR. Unfortunately, the seeing was not very good at the time.

Dave Mitsky

Attached Images

Catharina et al 17-inch 32mm Brandon 2006-2-3.JPG (30.4 KB, 36 views)

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Nice. Just out of curiosity, why is the date in the thread title 2006/2/7?

It's a typo. Thanks for the head's up.

Dave Mitsky

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32 mm? That is darn close up. Just how close-up can you shoot?

The 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain at the Naylor Observatory has an extremely long focal length of 6477mm. I could go to a much higher image scale very easily by using a shorter focal length eyepiece (or using the variable extension tube section of the camera adapter) but ultimately the seeing (i.e., atmospheric steadiness) and the resolution of the telescope puts a limit on what can be done.

http://www.astrohbg.org/gallery2/Tour-of-Naylor/17_inch

Dave Mitsky

__________________
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I reprocessed the image a bit. Here it is.

Dave Mitsky

Attached Images

Catherina et al 17-inch 32mm Brandon 2006-2-3 (small).jpg (54.7 KB, 17 views)

__________________
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
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looks great! about 5th day phase, Mares Nectaris with ridge off of Madler all the way to Altai Scarp highlighted. The depth of Theophilus plus the wall from Cyrillus to Catharina. If you didn't enlarge it much, I'd say that you are easily capturing 500 km diameters and since Theo is about 90 km across you can detail as good as Lick Obs. 36" refract. with features as small as 20 km easy. Since it wasn't a good seeing night. What is your take on smallest feature you can photograph at Nayler Obs.