This is my first light shot using the pre-loved equipment I have picked up on various forums (most off IIS). The data was acquired on the nights of the 14th and 15th August 2014, 15 km from Melbourne CBD. The image is a quick 4 hour exposure of M16 captured in Ha, composed of 600 sec subs. All processing with Photoshop. I'm fairly pleased with the results.
Actually, thinking about it, I have only ever bought second hand stuff that I have kept. All the new stuff seems to get sold I must like letting others break my stuff in before I get it (my excuse)
Actually, judging by the really faint spider vane spike, can I assume this MAY have been taken with the VC-200L I sold you? Or maybe the R200SS?
That looks great!
Are you going to take SII and OIII too? I'd love to see what you get!
I find SII really difficult to acquire through intense light pollution (I often image from my balcony 3kms from Sydney city, which is a bit of a lost cause sometimes...).
Actually, thinking about it, I have only ever bought second hand stuff that I have kept. All the new stuff seems to get sold I must like letting others break my stuff in before I get it (my excuse)
Actually, judging by the really faint spider vane spike, can I assume this MAY have been taken with the VC-200L I sold you? Or maybe the R200SS?
Why won't Terry tell us?
I want to know too.
How did he take such a sharp shot?
Hi Guys and Gals, sorry for the delay in my response. As I indicated earlier, all the gear I am using is second hand stuff with the exception of my AP-900 mount. The camera is an early STL-11000 from what I can tell. The subs look really scary, but clean up ok after calibration. I shoot at -15 so I can use the same darks year round or until new hot pixels start to peak out. It struggles to go any further than this in the summer, so -15 is my target all year round. Filters are installed in the internal 5 filter wheel. I have R, G, B, Lum and Ha in there. I was using the on board “Self Guiding” chip. In this image, I was guiding on a 9.2 mag star using 10 second exposures using the built in internal guide chip through the Ha filter. Man, that Ha filter really cuts the light down for guiding purposes. With good alignment, the 10 second exposures on the internal guide chip doesn’t seem to bother the tracking with the current mount. PEC is turned off on the mount. The scope is a 10 inch RCOS with a focal length of f9. I love the build quality, very strong. Focus seems very repeatable and stable with initial testing. In fact, I didn’t refocus at all with the M16 shot. In all the excitement – I forgot and didn’t realise until later. Typically, I used to refocus every 1 degree of temperature change. And, it’s still very scary to move around. It's the largest aperture I am prepared to move around and take to dark sky sites. The rest is pretty generic stuff really. I’d like to thank everyone for your kind replies and comments about the image. I couldn’t find a cloud removal mechanism anywhere. But if anyone knows of an eight position filter wheel for an STL-11000, I am very interested .