Back to square one!

[LewisM]

First light, at last, for the Takahashi FSQ106 EDXIII. This is at f/3.6, all in Ha/SII/OIII. Grand total 45 minutes. Packed, vac'd and stacked in CCDStack, with no corrections. Tried my close-to-natural blend, which partially worked,but looks dull.

The region is in Carina - roughly centred on NGC3532. I literally just blindly slew somewhere with a clear field of view from my tree-lined back yard after doing a SINGLE star alignment on Sirius (no drift alignment etc - I guess I am getting good at polar aligning), and a hand focus (with Bahtinov - f/3.6 version - them slits is narra! ) Hand-focused at f/3.6, 5 minute subs each, totaling 45 mins exposure, with NIL processing other than colour creation and mixing a semi-natural palette from Ha/SII/OII (which hides too much Ha IMHO)

http://www.astrobin.com/full/91187/0/

This was NO ATTEMPT to get any decent result - it was merely a full systems check. Only thing now is to finally fir the Sharpsky Pro robofocus and bloody buy some dew heater bands for the scope and guide scope.

MaxIM controlled everything, and the "new" NEQ6 purred like a kitten (I tore it down and rebuilt it after acquiring it recently - needed some fiddlin', but now she does not even coffee grind at all - whisper quiet slew etc)

I am VERY content with the system - gimme dark sky and no moon, and I am gonna be crankin' out the Gendler images in no time

Yeah, shut up, I know, but it's my first time out in 4 months, and with a new system entirely. Now, to await that Takahashi NJP mount

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Show'en some promise there Lewi great setup you have now, looking forward to seeing the fruits

Mike

[LewisM]

Thanks Mike. It's gettin' there.

No point processing the data - out of focus a little, not much there (though can extract more Ha, but why bother from a test shot...)

[omegacrux (David)]

Hi Lewis
I have quietly been following your ups and downs for a while
Your AP has progressed rapidly , so I am expecting good things ! btw sweet scope

David

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

F3.6 really brings out the neb! That will be a killer comet scope too. I'm jealous.

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Good work. Nothing wrong with square one, I'm not sure I ever left it.

Cheers

[LewisM]

NOW I actually was bored enough today to process it a LITTLE to bring out the H-a

Still a nothing image, but it shows how much H-a is around the Eta Carinae complex - NGC 3532 is away from it (you can see the main part of 3324 at bottom right just photo bombing this image)

Nope, nt touching this any more. Decided my autumn/winter target will be common old M20, and for a GX, probably M83 while it lasts.

[MortonH]

Very nice, Lewis.

I know nothing about AP, so excuse the question: what's the line through the bright star at bottom right?

[LewisM]

That's a bloom - overflow from the chip well, caused by my camera being non-antiblooming. By being non-AB, the chip is MUCH more sensitive (my CCD is perfect for photometry), but suffers this problem. Can be fixed in many ways, so long as it is NOT in a critical detail area etc. Can also be avoided with shorter sub frames, but with an f/3.6, this is SHORT!

I really need some dark skies for LRGB-Ha.... tired of all NB...

[MortonH]

Originally Posted by LewisM

That's a bloom - overflow from the chip well, caused by my camera being non-antiblooming. By being non-AB, the chip is MUCH more sensitive (my CCD is perfect for photometry), but suffers this problem. Can be fixed in many ways, so long as it is NOT in a critical detail area etc. Can also be avoided with shorter sub frames, but with an f/3.6, this is SHORT!

I really need some dark skies for LRGB-Ha.... tired of all NB...

Thanks. I'll add it to the long list of reasons I don't do AP!