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Old 15-02-2018, 06:32 PM
Placidus (Mike and Trish)
Narrowing the band

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Location: Euchareena, NSW
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M42, with repaired Aspen CG16M

Approximately four months ago, our Apogee Aspen CG16M started to develop ice crystals on the sensor. This was covered by a lifetime warranty.

We sent the camera to Andor in Belfast, UK, who now own Apogee. They took almost three months to repair the chamber seal.

To us, this seems at best cruelly leisurely, and at worst punitively cynical.

The whole experience has left us with a very bad taste in our mouth, and we cannot recommend Apogee to anyone.

We bolted the repaired camera back onto the scope, and found the parked position pointing straight at M42. That seemed an auspicious omen.

Great Orion Nebula

Repaired Apogee Aspen CG16M on 20" PlaneWave CDK. 8 off 15 minute exposures, plus a few ragtag 10 and 20 second exposures of the core. A little wavelet sharpening only.

This is not our best work, and we don't expect to be told it is good, but it is a tremendous (if bitter-sweet) relief to be back in the saddle.

For what it's worth, you can see not just the four main stars of the Trapezium, but the next two brightest are clearly visible.

The generator fans died during the night, the generator overheaded and turned itself off, so we only got 45 minutes of matching darks. No flats were used, as we will need a whole new set and we're not emotionally up to it right now.
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Old 15-02-2018, 06:53 PM
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Slawomir (Suavi)
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Hi M&T,

Im sorry about your experience with Andor - but such experiences may sometimes make us appreciate clear dark nights with working gear even more

I think the image is quite good and I look forward to future ones
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Old 15-02-2018, 07:02 PM
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atalas
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Yeah the resolution is great and the six trap stars visible... I'm sure I can see shock waves I've never noticed before Mike!but I wont tell you It's good, because I think It's great hope you get some colour for It soon!

Lets hope the camera doesn't stuff up again.
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Old 15-02-2018, 07:04 PM
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LewisM
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Great image!

For what it is worth, I had a similar issue with an SX-M25C some years ago. Sent it to SX, and it was back a week later. I cannot recommend SX highly enough.

My experience with SBIG/Diffraction conversely was VERY pedestrian and VERY frustrating. I simply replaced the entire CCD instead.
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Old 15-02-2018, 07:25 PM
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RickS (Rick)
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Good to see you back in the saddle, M&T.

My Apogee camera has been back twice and needs to go back a third time Then again, SX sold me a camera with a shutter that dropped oxide particles on the sensor and I have heard the occasional horror story from reliable sources about SBIG and FLI cameras. Seems like no vendor is perfect and we need to try to keep them on their toes...

Cheers,
Rick.
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Old 15-02-2018, 07:45 PM
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jenchris (Jennifer)
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Sort of shocks me into paralysis.
I'm missing out on something precious.
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Old 15-02-2018, 08:08 PM
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Peter Ward
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I understand your pain with the repair.

I had significant dealings with Apogee and a not inexpensive back-illuminated chip a while back now. It was not a happy ending.

Since then I seen failures from all the majors, but , thankfully just a few, but none are immune these days it seems.

Great to see you back in the saddle.
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Old 15-02-2018, 09:59 PM
Placidus (Mike and Trish)
Narrowing the band

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Hi, Suavi, Louie, Lewis, Rick, Jennifer, Peter,

Thanks for the support and camaraderie in our hour of need.

One thinks of the legitimate and understandable difference between having a letter delivered by snail mail for $1.00 and up to a week door to door, versus an overnight courier for ten or twenty dollars, and a detailed on-line log showing exactly where it was at any given time.

It would be wonderful if there were some way of having an "expedited" repair, regardless of whether it was under warranty or not, where one could pay a reasonable premium for having the repair genuinely express tracked, and some sort of reassuring feedback about where things were up to.
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