[kosborn (Kevin)]

Hi all,

Diego's images are a good advertisement for the Sidereal Trading Newtonians. Looking for something with a bit more focal length than my Esprit (and terrified of trying to collimate a slow RC) I ordered a Sidereal Trading/Klaus Helmerich carbon fibre Newtonian (in my case 254mm f/5) with appropriate bells and whistles. It was a little while in the making and only arrived a couple of days ago but it was well worth the wait. In Diego's words it was built with "lots of love and care", and that certainly shows.

This is NGC 2359 integrated from 40x 3 minute Ha subs with a nearby 98.9% moon giving nasty gradients across the image (with a new scope who cares about a full moon!? I'm just pleased the clouds went away long enough to get out under the stars). Even still, I'm happy with the image and looking forward to filling it out with OIII and LRGB when the moon wanes. No significant processing except a bit of noise reduction and a stretch.

Thanks Paul and Diego.

Cheers, Kevin