Limerick Astronomy Club

Hi Al,
I came across the following site which allows you to print out a Bahtinov mask and you cut it out yourself. Its used for getting vey accurate focus
http://astrojargon.net/MaskGenerator.aspx
All you need do is fill in the details for your scope, it generates a .svg file,
If you cant open the file, go to the following site and download inkscape
http://www.inkscape.org/download/?lang=en
This program will print out the mask to proper scale on an A4 printer,

I did this for the 12" and had to print out to 2 sheets, I then double laminated the sheets making them someway rigid, then then came the very tedious 2-3 hour run at cutting out the slots with a good sharp crafts knife.

For a good rundown on how bahtinov mask work, see
http://www.btinternet.com/~gfcarey/bahtinov.htm

Anyway, I captured an avi video of jupiter on Sept19th focusing using the mask, I put it through registax and it came out alot better then I thought it would.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2591/397 ... 8186_o.jpg

12"LX200 + 2xbarlow + toucam pro
None of the individual frames looked anything special yet the resultant image was alot better then I thought it would be
Its not up there with the real planetary camera shots, but it'll do for now.
I took a similar image a few days before without the mask and it doesnt compare to it at all.

Dave Lillis wrote: Its not up there with the real planetary camera shots, but it'll do for now.

Well, it looks real enough to me Dave!


It's all relative isn't it?

Don't put that image down coz you are not imaging in Barbados with a
16'' and an Atik ccd camera...
It's an excellent result for the equipment used and you should be proud of it.

In fact the Moon looks downright 3D and the colour is very realistic.
It is defiantly a 'globe' as opposed to a point of light.

As for the mask.
I must look into it as it really does seem to be an excellent way
to assure spot on focus.
Also the lines issue in registax was always an issue for me too,
it's great to know now that there is some kind of solution.

Thanks Frank,
I'm floored by those lines from registax, would you believe that I never saw them before this