Hi everyone,
I am very pleased to share a couple of 'first light' images from my Delta Rho 350 which, I believe, is the first of its kind in Oz. Cassegrain with focal length of 1050mm - so quite wide-field, but also pretty fast (f3).
Amusingly (or not) I ordered this scope in September 2021 (yes 2021
) - shortly after it was announced - and it finally made it to Melbourne at the end of Feb this year! How long have you waited for a new telescope?!
Unfortunately, since then, the skies have been very unforgiving with haze from hazard reduction burns almost every day. So progress has been a little slower than planned.
Anyway, here is 6 hours 3nm H-alpha on Carina, just as a test really (one hour already looks very good). I still need more work on the stars: apart from being overexposed, there is still residual tilt in the system. However the adjustments are extremely small for such a fast scope and so any further refinements will have to wait for clearer skies and further patience.
Here also a quick Hubble composite adding in a few hours each of S and O data. 'Starless' because I don't currently like the stars...
Higher res images here:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/i7s4m...6vmyt3xdn&dl=0
Guiding is with an Evostar 72ED as there is really not enough back focus for an OAG once you have a rotator, focuser and filter wheel locked in. Using a Prima Luce Labs rotator and focuser with custom-fabricated adapters courtesy of Testar (thanks for all your help making this happen Adriano!).
I have been using a RASA 8 for a long time but this is a pretty serious upgrade for me and coincides nicely with my retirement - so, hopefully, interesting times ahead!
cheers Jon