"Pete Lawrence" wrote in message
news snip
I used an 8'' Newt projected on to a piece of paper. I am a newbie so my
quality is not great. In this pic,
http://www.darofamily.com/jeff/files...s/p1010065.jpg, I believe
there is some black drop.

That's a really nice pic, and for a newbie, ou should be pretty proud
of it!

Like a number of other pics I've had, the black-drop appears to be
'stimulated' in pics like this from a degree of chromatic fringing
around the dark edges. What eyepiece (fl + type) were you using?
What were your sky conditions like?
snip

Forgive my ignorance, but the best answer I can give is that it was the
lower powered plossel that came with the scope. I think it may be a 25mm, at
48x mag I guess? Sorry. Still amazed at what I can see with the scope, so I
have not focused on "how" it is letting me do it yet. It's a Hardin Optical
8'' Dob.

On to my next area of ignorance. I do not know how to report on my seeing
and clarity in the area. I can say, I was shooting just off the edge of my
neighbors house, but I don't think the roof heat was a problem as it was
early in the morning. We had some light haze and lots of moisture in the
air. No clouds at all, and the disc of the sun was clearly visible. Just as
the sun crested the trees, I briefly looked over and was able to see venus
naked eye but just for a second. So I think seeing was a close to perfect as
it could have been.

BTW, thanks for the compliments. I appreciate. The pics most of you post
astonish me. I have to say my favorite pic that I took that day (and I have
no idea why) is the one showing the trees. I stepped partially in front of
the scope and that image got reflected from the primary on to my arm. It
looked cool, so I refocused it on some paper and took that snap.

http://www.darofamily.com/jeff/files...s/p1010035.jpg

Now on to the black drop. I have no knowledge of why or if this happens, but
I believ that I can see it in the picture I mentioned in the original post.
To me, it looks like that old illusion of the white lines criss crossing on
the black background. The intersections all look grey.

BV.