PHOTO OF THE WEEK, M2, First 10" image

This week we present the first electronic image taken with the 10" Newtonian
telescope. This was made during my film photography career when a telescope
was never big enough. It replaced the 8" made in the 50's and within a
couple of years was replaced with the 16".

Not long after making the 16", I ventured into electronic imaging with CCD
cameras and never looked back until recently. Film has a significant
advantage over CCD imaging by virtue of it's size compared to the tiny CCD
chip but over the years I had acquired pictures of everything that works
best with film. For smaller and more remote objects, CCD is a slam/dunk, as
they say.

It has also become painfully obvious that bigger is not always better. It is
a simple fact that the larger the aperture and the longer the focal length,
the more a telescope becomes dependant upon good seeing to perform even as
well as a smaller one. It was a rare night when a picture taken with the 16"
was any better than with the 10" and it just does not seem to be worth the
additional hassle of a larger scope at a location where the seeing is more
often bad than good.

With the move to electronic imaging, things only get worse because of the
better resolution of the CCD camera. As I only have film images with the 10"
to compare to, I thought it would be fun to recommission it and image with
it for a few months. With Mars gone and the 16" mirror due for a new
coating, I thought this would be a good time to do it. This week's image is
the first taken with the 10" and a CCD camera.


js

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