Last night, one of my good clients and good friend, Bob Gaskin, sent me some images that he had just taken while using his Mini Tower. Please, note that his MT does have the Timken Bearing Upgrade and is no longer a stock unit. I just wanted to make certain that this was clear.
Bob has been working in the AP field for quite some time. He has a web page that shows some of the most outstanding work that I have ever seen. Much of it was done with an Astro-Physics AP-900 GEM. He has some extremely nice telescopes and a high end SBIG astro-camera. With that in mind it is no wonnder that he has produced some remarkable images. His web site can be found here: http://gaskin-astro.org/blog/
Last night, Bob decided to “experiment” with his Stellarvue 80 mm refractor and the Mini Tower. He mounted up his camera and did a rough alignment. He then told the mount to go to M31 and it was, of course, dead center in the FOV. He started imaging with 30 seconds being his exposure time. After 40 images were taken he then processed them with one of the CCDTools programs. I think it was CCD-Stacks. I’m not perfectly certain since I don’t have that software and I am not an imager myself, yet. I think that Bob intends to change that last part in the near future. LOL
The images below are of the setup that he used last night in his driveway in Northwest Florida.
MT-80mm-SBIG
Another picture of Bob's rig
One more image of Bob's set up
Bob finished the processing and then called me on the telephone. He sounded rather excited and asked if I had checked my e-mail. I had literally just walked in the door and was only opening my first e-mail. I jumped up to his note and opened it up. This image is what I saw.
I could see why Bob was so excited. This image was beautiful! The fact that it was done with a small scope and the Mini Tower just made it that much more impressive. Bob then told me that he had not had to do ANY corrections over the 40+ minute session of imaging. He very specifically pointe out that the stars were pin points and that the Mini Tower had never drifted even once. He also told me that it was tracking as accurately as his AP-900 would track. Now THAT floored me! I knew the MT was a good mount, but, to have it track and image as well as a mount that has a base cost of TEN TIMES MORE was just remarkable!
Bob then told me he was now working on the Double Cluster and that he would send the final image of it when he was done processing it. I, however, had been up since 0500 and it was now 2300 hrs. I was beat and needed some sleep. I went to bed knowing that the morning e-mail would bring another nice image. This is the image that I received.
The Double Cluster in Perseus
There you have it folks! The Mini Tower is a most capable and versitile mount. There is, in my opinion, nothing that can come close to it for double or maybe even triple the price! The only way to get this performance is with an expensive GEM. I find it truly amazing that this little $800.00 ($1100.00 with the Timken Bearing Upgrade) can match a mount that sells for nothing less than 10 times the cost! I am extremely proud of the mount that we provided to Bob and even more proud of the people at iOptron for creating this remarkable product. Of course, I am also extremely proud to be one of the vendors that is allowed to offer this incredible mount to the astronomy community. I’m just wondering what iOptron has up their sleeves that will top this? I can’t wait to find out!
Clear skies to all,
Steve Forbes