Quote:
Originally Posted by Merlin66
Great stuff!!
Nova search seemed to be more popular in the 60’s and 70’s, but you show with some dedication results can be obtained with “basic” equipment.
Why did you use f6.3 on a 55mm lens? Just interested.
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Thanks Ken. Nearly all galactic novae are now discovered by Japanese or Australian observers, don't know why that is. The Japanese guys are way in front though - leading 7-3 in 2018!
The lens I use is an F/5.6 55-200mm Sigma zoom lens, Canon mount. It is woeful and the lens aberrations are alarming. I back off a stop to F/6.3 to try to ameliorate that a little. In a perfect world I would be using a 50mm F/1.2 lens but I'm perpetually broke so just make do.
Galactic novae tend to be pretty bright and my frames are good for anything mag 11 or brighter. In good skies my LM is low mag 12s but anything much dimmer than mag 11 has a pretty low S/N ratio. Anyway, I've discovered two novae with this lens so maybe it's not too bad after all!
Cheers -