This is the official first light image of this new imaging rig, on a very rarely imaged target (one that Mike has not imaged yet
). There is still quite a lot to sort out with slop and tilt, but I cannot sort that until I get my Atlas installed on the scope as I think there is significant slop coming from the Moonlite focuser. Thanks to Ray (Shiraz) for the tip of doing the colour on the same side of the meridian to alleviate a lot of the star colour not registering.
This is really a mini data run for me (no doubt it will amuse a few me saying that
), but it shows what can be done with a minimal amount of data with a fast Newtonian. I think I am sold on this fast image scale idea. Though I will be doing deeper imaging, it won't need to be as long as the runs I have done in the past for most objects. Resolution looks ok to me, but I really need the newer sensors to take full advantage. I had to remove a few subs out of the luminance stack as they had rather bad egg shaped stars, but I managed a few good subs the other night with some changes to my guide parameters.
The galaxy is an irregular galaxy about 5.8 million light years away from the Earth. It is apparently one of the few galaxies where individual stars can be resolved; probably with much larger apertures. The star in the foreground is mag 7.7 and the galaxy is about mag 10.6. You can just make out few dust lanes near the centre of the galaxy. There are a myriad of galaxies in the back ground of all manner of shapes and sizes.
Click here for larger resolution image