ETX-70 DeepSky... piggyback imaging... solar system... accessories... webcam

The ETX can image satisfactorily in altaz mode but at longer focal length, like the native 350mm fl f/5 OG, field rotation is obvious. However a piggybacked camera with short focal length [<150mm fl] for widefield works in brief exposures. The camera is coupled to the ETX via a dummy eyepiece locked into the 1/4" camera bush and in turn into the top flip-mirror port.  The camera weight is counterbalanced with a pipe-clip and weight from my LX200.

A prism before the camera converts it to a simple OG prism spectrograph!

Cropped OG prism spectrograms of Comet C/2006 VZ13/ M27/ M57 [but piggybacked here on Meade LX200 for convenience!]

The following extract images shows a region adjacent to M57 in Lyra 'rising' high in the east in altaz mode where both motors are at maximum tracking rate [excluding the zenith!] compared to the static scope with trailed images in the same exposure.

More extract images show Vesta in Sco [near Jupiter]in twilight, Lyra and Cygnus field near Nova Cyg 07 [=V2467 Cyg] all in tracked altaz mode.

The following pair of widefield images of northern Lyra [Vega lower centre] and Hercules/Ophiuchus region taken with a simple 50mm f/2.8 Tessar lens of 18mm aperture reaches mag 9 in 30s exposure at 400ISO with the piggybacked Canon 300D DSLR - some variable star positions are marked including to former novae near Lyra - one of my birthyear!

text & images copyright Maurice Gavin - May 2007