AP140EDF first light - the SMC

[RickS (Rick)]

With my camera finally repaired I headed down to dark skies at Glen Aplin last weekend with the AP140 (Greg Bradley's "old" scope) for its first outing. My target for the weekend was the SMC which is presented here in LRGB. I also collected some Ha and Oiii and will be producing a RGB/NB blend some time soonish.

We had clear skies but there was a lot of moisture in the air and the seeing was pretty awful a lot of the time. Despite this the scope performed brilliantly and I'm very happy with the result. Perhaps a slight amount of tilt to be tweaked out...

Scope: AP140EDF = 771mm FL, Atlas focuser
Mount: AP900
Camera: U16M
Filters: Astrodon E series Gen 2 LRGB
Guiding: Lodestar / Borg 50mm guide scope
Image scale: 2.41 arcsec/pixel (drizzled to about 1.8 arcsec/pixel)
Exposures: 21x600s L, 6x900s R, 6x900s G, 6x900s G
Processing: PixInsight 1.8

The IIS image compression really kills this image so please take a look at the Astrobin version, preferably at high res!

http://www.astrobin.com/full/211572/0/

Constructive comments are always appreciated

Cheers,
Rick.

[topheart]

Majestic !

Very well done, Rick.

Thanks,
Tim

[gregbradley]

Classic AP look, tiny grains of sand type stars. Fabulous.

Greg.

[Tony_ (Tony)]

Superb image Rick! Great resolution of the stars.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by topheart

Majestic !

Very well done, Rick.

Thanks,
Tim

Thanks, Tim!

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Classic AP look, tiny grains of sand type stars. Fabulous.

Greg.

It's a fantastic scope, thanks Greg! I'd love to get the dedicated flattener and a *really* big sensor.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Tony_

Superb image Rick! Great resolution of the stars.

Thanks, Tony.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

He, he, he...yeah baby, pretty good huh?

The very small amount of tilt evident lower right in the full res shot is pretty inconsequential mate

Mike

[Atmos (Colin)]

That's fantastic, totally agree with Greg... So many incredibly small tiny dots!

[Paul Haese]

Crap load of stars there Rick. Nicely resolved too. I like the star colours but I reckon it could do with some more contrast enhancement to make the nebulae more prominent. I think it is hard to see the nebulae. Then again there are a heap of stars.

[gregbradley]

It's a fantastic scope, thanks Greg! I'd love to get the dedicated flattener and a *really* big sensor.[/QUOTE]

They come up on Astromart every now and then. Keep an eye out for one.

Yes the 50100 perhaps? I don't think 10-12 electron read noise is a big deal on a widefield scope. No worse than the KAI11002.

Greg.

[Spookyer (Brett)]

Great starter Rick for the new scope.

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

Very nice image Rick, I will use it as a reference when planning my next target - one of those regions with nebulosities within the SMC.

I will be certainly looking forward to your new images taken with this great telescope.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

He, he, he...yeah baby, pretty good huh?

The very small amount of tilt evident lower right in the full res shot is pretty inconsequential mate

Mike

Thanks, Mike. Yep, the scope is a keeper

Originally Posted by Atmos

That's fantastic, totally agree with Greg... So many incredibly small tiny dots!

Thanks, Colin.

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

Crap load of stars there Rick. Nicely resolved too. I like the star colours but I reckon it could do with some more contrast enhancement to make the nebulae more prominent. I think it is hard to see the nebulae. Then again there are a heap of stars.

Thanks, Paul. I agree but I'm going to concentrate on bringing out the nebulosity in the HaOiiiRGB version. I did a quick & dirty version already and it shows the SMC in a very different light (was that a terrible pun?)

Originally Posted by gregbradley

They come up on Astromart every now and then. Keep an eye out for one.

Yes the 50100 perhaps? I don't think 10-12 electron read noise is a big deal on a widefield scope. No worse than the KAI11002.

Greg.

I try to keep away from Astromart but that's a good idea, thanks Greg. The 50100 would be a great size. Might have to start saving my US dollars.

Originally Posted by Spookyer

Great starter Rick for the new scope.

Ta, Brett.

Originally Posted by Slawomir

Very nice image Rick, I will use it as a reference when planning my next target - one of those regions with nebulosities within the SMC.

I will be certainly looking forward to your new images taken with this great telescope.

Thanks, Suavi! Have you seen the Clouds of Magellan web site? It's a good resource for cloud imaging.

http://cloudsofmagellan.net.au/

Cheers,
Rick.

[Paul Haese]

Originally Posted by RickS

Thanks, Paul. I agree but I'm going to concentrate on bringing out the nebulosity in the HaOiiiRGB version. I did a quick & dirty version already and it shows the SMC in a very different light (was that a terrible pun?)

Ah cool, I will look forward to it Rick.

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

A gorgeous image Rick! Love the framing, love the colours and love the natural look. Look forward to seeing a (restrained) NB enhanced version!

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

A gorgeous image Rick! Love the framing, love the colours and love the natural look. Look forward to seeing a (restrained) NB enhanced version!

Thanks, Marcus! I'll try not to go too overboard with the NB

[DJT (David)]

Great first light! Enjoy the scope and also looking forward to the NB image. SMC is a very nice area to play in.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by DJT

Great first light! Enjoy the scope and also looking forward to the NB image. SMC is a very nice area to play in.

Thanks, David!

[Stevec35 (Steve)]

Nicely done as expected Rick. The colour looks spot on. Many SMC shots have the nebulae far too red.

Cheers

Steve

[Octane (Humayun)]

Superb, Rick!

Can't wait to process my one this weekend.

H