Brian Dorey.com

Camera mount with finder scope fitting for HEQ5 PRO mount

Filed under Astrophotography , Photography

After getting some good photos with the new telescope kit purchased in October, we thought it would be good to be able to make use of the tracking facilities of the HEQ5 PRO mount with the normal camera and wider lenses to get general astronomy wide field photographs. I purchased a dovetail bracket, camera quick release plate and mount and extra mounting bracket for my finder scope and using an alloy block and some custom brackets, made the following mount for the camera with the finderscope attached to setup the alignment and point at the stars to check alignment.

Parts Used:

• SkyWatcher 9x50 Sky-Watcher Finderscope with mounting bracket
• Manfrotto quick release mount
• Dovetail mount to fit HEQ5 PRO
• Alloy machines to fit mounts and brackets

Front view of the mount

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jupiter and moons

Filed under Photography , Astrophotography

jupiter and moons, a photo by brian-dorey on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
First attempt at photos of a different planet taken in the back garden with Skywatcher EXPLORER-200PDS on a HEQ5 PRO mount. Camera connected directly to telescope. Waiting for a book on astrophotography to be delivered now so i can learn more before going out in the cold again!

Using the Metaweblog API on Blogengine.net with Flickr

Filed under Photography

The BlogEngine.NET blog system has a very useful Metaweblog API which allows authorised websites to post blog entries to your blog. On previous versions of this blog I had used this to post photos from Flickr to the blog but didnt add it when setting up my new personal Flickr account earlier this year.

After upgrading the blog to the new 2.5 release, I tried to find the older Metaweblog API blog option on the Flickr site (under sharing http://www.flickr.com/account/?tab=extend )but this option is no longer available on the new  Flickr sharing page and has been moved to the Wordpress  link under “More sites”.

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fly on gorse bush

Filed under Photography

fly on gorse bush, a photo by brian-dorey on Flickr.

Using the modified Sigma ring flash adapter and Canon 65mm macro lens to get a shot of a small fly on a gorse bush on Corfe Common

sunset across field of white flowers

Filed under Gallery Updates , Photography

sunset across field of white flowers, a photo by brian-dorey on Flickr.

Trying the Canon 70-200mm IS MK2 lens for sunsets on the hills above Lulworth earlier this week. The zoom lens seems to work ok for low light shots

Time lapse Swanage

Filed under Photography , Video and Audio

Converted just under 1000 webcam images from the past few days into a time lapse movie. The webcam takes a photo every 4 minutes and the video is playing back at 30fps.

Canon MP-E 65mm to Sigma EM 140 DG ringflash adapter

Filed under Photography , Projects

We purchased the Sigma EM-140 DG ring flash a couple of years ago to use on the Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens. The flash mounts on the end of the lens using the supplied adapters but this leaves the flash lights around 30mm in front of the lens. The Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens has a very short focal distance when on higher magnifications and the subject was going inside the flash unit and was unusable. To rectify this problem and to give a more even light at lower magnifications we decided to try to make a new mount which would bring the front of the flash to be level with the end of the lens.

Doing this has resulted in the loss of the lowest magnification but the improved flash quality has made up for the loss of the 1:1 focal length.

The image below shows the flash unit and its original mounting rings.

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Acuter Merlin/Orion Motorised AZ Mount controlled by a Wii Nunchuk with remote zoom

Filed under Photography , Projects

We purchased an Acuter Merlin/Orion Motorised AZ Mount to use with our Canon 5D Mk 2 camera on a 50 foot telescopic mast fitted to our Land Rover Defender for high level photography for our new business venture (www.apexviews.co.uk)

Initial tests using the Merlin mount and a software driver (Papywizard) to move the Merlin mount and the Canon EOS Utility software to view what the camera sees via a long usb cable and to take photos.

We found using a tablet pc or laptop there wasn't enough screen space to use the Canon EOS Utility and Papywizard at the same time so we could pan and tilt the camera and still see the live view. To overcome this problem we researched options to make a hardware based controller to send the serial commands the Merlin head requires for remote control. We also wanted to be able to control a servo driven system which we have added to the remote head which allows us to remotely zoom the Canon SLR lenses.

Microchip have a 40 pin DIL Microprocessor (Microchip PIC16F887 Pic Processor) which has the required Analogue to Digital converters, Serial Communication and Pulse Width Modulators to fulfil all the needs of the project.

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