My new ZWO guide camera came with a fish eye lens. Of course, I had to try it. Tonight was clear at first, but then it got clouded out about 1:30 AM. Wasn’t worth setting up the complete telescope, but enough to try the new camera on a tripod with its lens.
I used SharpCap to take continuous 30 second exposures. I combined over 655 frames to create the following video:
Short but sweet. Not bad for a first try! This is at 10 FPS. You can see that the sky rotates around Polaris down and right of center. And you may be able to note the Milky Way setting on the top and left portions of the video near the beginning.
I averaged all of the frames to try to make a “flat,” and I subtracted it from all of the frames. Since Polaris is mostly still, it made a black spot. The trees also ended up getting a weird embossed effect that I kind of like. The little lens has a lot of coma, but it’s still so fun!
You can see just how many planes and satellites I have to deal with during an imaging session. There are so many more dim satellites, too! Of note, you can see the Big Dipper, everyone’s favorite constellation, rising out of the bottom of the video.
