spectro-aras.com

A post to get my account going, and access to all of the forum topics. I live in Las Cruces, New Mexico and observe with a couple of roll out scopes in my driveway. I have a SA200, an ALPY 600 and L200. An 8" LX200, 10" Meade SCT on a Losmandy G11, and 130mm Astro Tech apo with a .8x reducer/flattener.

I've been interested in spectroscopy for a while now and have recently retired. So now I will finally be able to pursue it in earnest once the monsoon season is over in the New Mexico desert.

The other night I put the SA200 on an 8" LX200 SCT with 6.3 focal reducer and ZWO ASI178mm camera. As I was gathering some focus images in AstroArt 8, I attempted a plate solve with multiple spectra in the image. To my amazement, AstroArt completed the plate solve in a fraction of a second!! I was going to setup a guidescope/camera combination for pointing, but it seems that won't be necessary for this combo.

Steve Barkes
Las Cruces, NM

Steve "GuideDog" Barkes. There's a name from the QCUIAG past. Welcome to ARAS, Steve !

Steve Barkes wrote:
The other night I put the SA200 on an 8" LX200 SCT with 6.3 focal reducer and ZWO ASI178mm camera. As I was gathering some focus images in AstroArt 8, I attempted a plate solve with multiple spectra in the image. To my amazement, AstroArt completed the plate solve in a fraction of a second!!

Cool isn't it I use astrometry.net on line to do the same.

Cheers
Robin

Robin,

Yes, I miss the old QCUIAG days. It was a hoot being on the bleeding edge of a movement. I can't count the number of webcams I modified back then.

I appreciate all you've done for spectroscopy. Your posts appear on every forum it seems, and your website and BAA presentations are a fantastic resource.

Looking forward to getting serious about spectroscopy and photometry now that I'm finally retired. Just need the weather to cooperate. Monsoon season should be ending next month.

Steve