Galileo's Camera

Like my last post says, I went through an unfortunate incident of breaking the mount of my Celestron 114EQ. Thankfully I had the Samyang Mirror Lens to play with. Here is a photo of Jupiter made with the mirror lens: Jupiter - Stack of 10 images 1/80 shutter at 800ISO. Taken by Samyang 500mm f8.0 with a 2x converter. The photo is not so bad compared to the shot I took via the 114 EQ (link: http://galileoscamera.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-shot-of-jupiter.html ): Jupiter - Non-stacked 1/20 shutter at 100ISO.  The obvious differences are in the image size (which I still cannot figure out why - possibly I shot at a different resolution) and the shutter speed/ISO settings. The 114EQ gives the less grainy/noisy and therefore the better quality image. Well I guess I need to try a bit more in darker and clearer skies.

Well usually, you'd say it the other way around: Good news and bad news. But I have a lot more to say about the good news than the bad news. The bad news is that I toppled over the telescope and broke its mount. I still can't believe it, but yeah so that's how it went. I am thankful that the tube is unharmed. But the mechanism holding the tube on the mount rail it self is broken. It is almost impossible to "fix" it. As far as I can see the mount is made of cast iron. I have to write to Celestron and see if they can send me a replacement part. The good news is that I finally got the mirror lens. It's a Samyang 500mm with a 2x converter ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0080S9F1E/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00 ). The lens seems to be sharp enough for the moment, at least as sharp as the 114EQ. The biggest advantage of the mirror lens is its size. When you take the converter and the lens apart, it fits nicely inside a camera bag. The lens it self is sh...