10/13/2007 - TRIPLE VENUS
This triple image of Venus puzzled - and alarmed me - at the same time. It was taken through an 8" LX200 - a used telescope that I had recently purchased from a gentleman in Bothell, Washington. This image, and others similar to it, were captured using a Canon EOS 20D DSLR camera mounted to the aforementioned telescope - a setup that had, in recent past, given me stunning images. What had happened? >>
I floated this out to friends and associates on the LX90 Yahoo users group and most concluded that it was one of two things:
1) Upper atmosphere turbulence or
2) Convection inside the OTA (telescope)
I'm not sure which but I'm favoring the upper atmosphere turbulence. Of course, convection inside the OTA can't be discounted - I had only recently taken the telescope out into some cool air from a warm room. It's always wise to allow several hours for your equipment to temperature-normalize before doing any serious viewing or imaging.
And that's my hard-won tip of the day. :)