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Hi Lars,
I use a C-8 with my PMT UBV photon counting unit. It works well. I have also experimented with both the DSI Pro and DSI Pro II with CCD Photometry. While they work well and I used them on a 12" LX-200, they will not work on a C-8 or any telescope for observing epsilon Aurigae. The reason is they are too sensitive and epsilon Aurigae is too bright. What I have found is buying a Mogg adapter and using the filter slide with photometric filters with a 50 mm camera lens works well. Let me know if you are interested in going that route and I can rovide more details. Foget about using the C-8, however.
Jeff
Counting Photons
Hopkins Phoenix Observatory
Phoenix, Arizona USA
phxjeff@hposoft.com
It is worth trying with your existing equipment.
De-focus a little bit to spread the light out over more pixels.
Also, use a green filter which approximates the V band, or visual band filter. This may have come with your DSI or you may have a color unit, in which case you would have to extract the green pixels with software. Another option would be to get a green filter on front of it.
One forum you might try for further advice is the DSLR forum which is addressing similar questions.
Try a range of exposure times from 2 seconds on down to the shortest exposure available. I think that Brian Kloppenborg is possibly creating a tutorial about CCD based photometry that may help you out a lot.
Once you get to the stage where you need to reduce data, you might check out a free software called Iris (www.astrosurf.com~buil/us/iris/iris.htm) Unfortunately, it may not work with mac....
I hope you have good luck and use your equipment to make some observations of Eps Aur.
Naomi
Hi @ all
I would like to help to get on to the track of of eps auri. Therefore I just wondered if someone does have any experience with a C8 + DSI kind of equipment combination. Is the DSI suitable for that kind of task? What exposure time would you suggest as a first guideline or rough calculation?
Regards
Lars