Last update 2000-8-27
The longer I work with CCD the more I notice that focussing is very important especially CCD. The improve this I tried a front plate of thick paper with three holes and put it on in front of the telescope. After aiming on a bright star, focussing became easy. If the stars is out of focus the starlight will be split in three dots. How more the focus is achieved how closer these dots come and perfect focus is achieved when the final star on the CCD monitor has minimum size. It look like it works better then the solution using just a piece of paper as described in lx10_2. Here is a small sketch:
Here is a picture of me using the LX10 on a simple wooden platform at the second level above the ground. I have a garden with enough place (however facing north) but here above feel very comfortable with my PC nearby (essential for CCD) and all other things like beer, coffee and so on. Secondly I can leave it standing for hours without a worry that somebody is robbing my parts. The only disadvantage is the limited view. The window looks out in the direction south but my LX10 can go up only up till a declination of about +10 degrees before it hit the top.
The following two pictures are made with a simple camera lens attached to my CCD camera. The diafragma is set one step smaller then maximum. I must admit these simple camera lenses can produce lovely pictures. Also nice to test the CCD during daylight conditions (if you can made short exposures of 0.001 secs.
This one has not the smallest filesize, however it is demonstrating HNSKY versus a real CCD picture: virgdemo.jpg