22 shots of 2 minutes each @ISO3200 taken with the Sony A7s collector's item (sans star-eater feature) and the Royce 10 inch mirror.
HIGH REZ HERE
I have calculated the optimum sky limited exposure for this Heathcote sourced image and yes 2 mins is the correct exposure time. Gawd! But I still feel I might try some longer exposures another time to see what extra I can retrieve.
I've compared the image to a few here and am very pleased with the result, considering my remaining improvements yet to be made to the system. Especially fine tuning of the back focus and guiding. Oh and elec focus about to come into play.
This image means a lot to me, as it was the point at which the below started happening, I typed this on one of Mike's image posts, It was when I truly fell into the abyss...........Later, when I plate solved all the faint fuzzies, it was even more of a buzz!
"I have to mention my 'religious' experience last weekend. First full decent test of my 10 inch scope. At 3 in the morning at sub zero Heathcote, I was hunting around the planetarium for good targets. Fell across the Fornax region, so started aiming for various areas there. No specific target searches, just took a 20sec image (with the sensitive A7s), plate solved and peered. And peered! I ended up taking an hour to compose my shot and loved every freaking second of it! Enthralling, mystical, searching for those incredibly massive and populous galaxies. I could feel myself succumbing to the aperture and focal length bug! No.....dont order the RC Simon!!!! Well not yet anyway."
