Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 60

S&T Test Report

that, the resulting pictures appeared
smoother and easier to process. The
background problems seen when imaging from home were gone, no doubt
because pictures taken under dark skies
don't require as aggressive processing.
One problem I encountered was
the appearance of large, blue, bloated
"stars" in some frames. It appeared as
if Neptune had somehow sailed into
the ﬁeld of the Whirlpool Galaxy! At
ﬁrst I was stumped as to its cause, but
then it occurred to me these objects
were suspiciously similar in color to
the bright blue LED on the back of the
camera, which comes on as soon as the
USB cable is plugged in and ﬂashes during exposures. Placing a piece of tape
over the LED somehow caused the blue
intruders to disappear.
Users should note that the SkyRaider
DS2.3 Plus does not include infrared
blocking on the CMOS detector, so
an additional IR-blocking ﬁlter (not
included) needs to be placed in front of
the chip to ensure the best color ﬁdelity
in your images.

Planetary Performance

p Capturing the Moon is easy with the SkyRaider DS2.3 Plus in video mode. The author recorded
and stacked 300 full-resolution frames to produce this close-up of the lunar crater Theophilus and
surroundings using an 8-inch SCT at f/20.

ups" of smaller objects like galaxies and
planetary nebulae.
Despite the bright backyard skies
and some haze, my processed pictures
were comparable to what I can do under
similar conditions with a DSLR. I was
particularly impressed by the absence of
thermal noise with Dark Field calibra60

O C T O B E R 2 0 17 * S K Y & T E L E S C O P E

tion enabled. The only problem I noted
was some minor background artifacts
that could later be corrected using ﬂatﬁeld calibration frames.
When using the camera at my
astronomy club's country observing site,
I pushed the SkyRaider's gain setting
higher than in the backyard, but despite

With the Moon and Jupiter coming into
view, I tested the SkyRaider's planetary
imaging performance with the 8-inch
SCT with a 2× Barlow lens. Taking
images of the Sun, Moon, and planets
with the SkyRaider is pleasantly simple.
In MallinCamSky, switch to video mode
in the Capture menu, click the Options
button, and specify the resulting video
to be saved in AVI format. Adjust the
exposure time to avoid over-exposing
your target, and when you're focused,
click the video record button near the
top of the screen.
Although the image of Jupiter on
screen looked good, here is where I
encountered the limits of my USB 2.0
connection. While the camera's specs
state it can deliver up to 30 frames per
second (FPS), when I clicked the record
button, the camera began capturing a measly 3 FPS! This is alright for
shooting the Sun and Moon, but for
planetary work, the more video frames
you can record in a short amount of
time, the better, thus ensuring you get

Sky and Telescope - October 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - October 2017

Contents
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - Cover1
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - Cover2
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 1
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - Contents
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 3
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 4
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 5
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 6
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 7
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 8
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 9
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 10
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 11
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 12
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 13
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Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 15
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 16
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 17
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 18
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 19
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 20
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 21
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Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 24
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 25
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 26
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 27
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 28
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 29
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 30
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 31
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 32
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 33
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 34
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 35
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 36
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 37
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 38
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 39
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 40
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 41
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 42
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 43
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Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 48
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 49
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 50
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Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 53
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Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 58
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Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 60
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 61
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 62
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 63
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Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - 84
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - Cover3
Sky and Telescope - October 2017 - Cover4
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