November 16, 2024

Back to Basics: Imaging Without a Computer…

Vintage 1980 Meade 2080 LX configured for imaging.

A vintage 1980 Meade 2080 LX configured for imaging. Note the interval timer resting on top of the tripod and the power cord for clock drive.

M42 & 43 – The Great Nebula in Orion – Vintage 2080 LX

Telescope: Meade 2080 LX @ f/6.3

Camera: Full-spectrum Modified Canon 600D (Rebel T3i)

Filter: Highpoint Scientific IR Blocking FIlter

Guide scope: None

Exposure: 27x10sec, ISO 1600, Saved as RAW

Darks: Internal (Long Exposure Noise Reduction On)

Flats: Synthetic

Average Light Pollution: Red zone, Bortle 8, poor transparency

Lensed Sky Quality Meter: 18.4 mag/arc-sec^2

Stacking: Mean with a 2-sigma clip.

White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic

Software: Nebulosity, Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop

This is one of a series of pictures that I took using my 1980 vintage Meade 2080 LX just having some fun. I found that with 10 second exposures I was getting about 80% useable frames, which isn’t too bad! The drift between frames was a nice source of natural dithering which really helped smoothing things out. To keep things extra simple I just used an interval timer to take the source images.