Hyperstar III Imaging

Abstract

Prior to imaging with the new Hyperstar III, I had been imaging with the relatively slow Sky 90 (at f#4.5) and the M25C 6-megapixel OSC CCD. During the year that I was imaging with this combination, I was not really bothered about how slow it was as I was on a year's Sabbatical and I could stay up all night without worrying about going in to the day job. However, my year was coming to an end and I was panicking about what I was going to do with my imaging. Along came a series of good luck. First Starizona brought out the Hyperstar III which would not only cover my M25C CCD chip, but it also came along with collimation and camera rotation adjusters. Perfect! Then out of the blue, the University sent me out to Arizona on business. Arizona means Starizona and the guys at Starizona sent me a Hyperstar III for my C11 SCT as well as their superb autofocuser for the feathertouch focuser I already had on the C11. I got back from Arizona, very jet-lagged, but still wanted to get the Hyperstar set up, which was a bad idea. Even the missus said not to do it, but of course I did not listen. Highly excited, I went out to the observatory, Hyperstar III in hand and tried to fit it in the secondary cell. But it wouldn't fit! I wondered if the Starizona guys had sent me the wrong model of Hyperstar, but quickly discarded the idea. A quick e-mail to Dean at Starizona came back with "Have you taken the protector off the end of the Hyperstar?" After I realized my mistake, I fitted the absolutely beautiful new Hyperstar III lens to the Nexstar C11 GPS and I was ready for business.