After my last night runaway mount experience, I changed both RA & DEC cables and did 10x10min in Ha on the Helix. Pretty faint, so I couldn't see it and point to it in the finder, and with my legendary polar alignment and goto accuracy it only took me about 1h to find it . Tracking was good so tomorrow night I'm going to load the hyperstar with the C11 and shoot the same thing. Now I'm confident I'm not going to break anything. FOV should be similar, maybe a bit bigger but I suspect I'm going to be doing 30s to 1min subs and go to bed waaay earlier than tonight. Will be a good comparison test.
Stars look good Marc, and you've captured part of the outer viel of the nebulae. More data will help as usual, but you know that. I'd be pretty proud of that effort personally, but I'm easy to please I guess.
Stars look good Marc, and you've captured part of the outer viel of the nebulae. More data will help as usual, but you know that. I'd be pretty proud of that effort personally, but I'm easy to please I guess.
Dave
Thanks David. I think this object looks way better at higher FL like what Mike Sidonio did, but I had enough hard time to find where it was.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CoolhandJo
Good work. This is faint (as you know) but I think the Ha you have is really good going. Will you be adding some RGB?
Thanks Paul. Unlikely . Just getting the Ha was hard Yakka from where I am. Not very rewarding. I'm going to shoot the same field tonight with the C11/Hyperstar combo and compare. Unguided though as I haven't figured out how to guide the C11 with HS. Normally I use an OAG. Tonight was a test run to make sure the mount was ok with the new cables. You can see the pic is still very noisy for an hour and a half. The forecast in Sydney was clear with good seeing but I kept getting those pesky clouds coming through from the NE until I gave up around 1:00pm
Nice shot, Marc. The Hyperstar will certainly get that and probably more in a much shorter exposure than what you did last night. Seems the best cameras for them are OSC's, since you don't really want to start adding filter selectors and such to the weight on the front of the scope.
Nice shot, Marc. The Hyperstar will certainly get that and probably more in a much shorter exposure than what you did last night. Seems the best cameras for them are OSC's, since you don't really want to start adding filter selectors and such to the weight on the front of the scope.
Apparently the light cone is so steep there are issues with monochrome cameras and narrowband with ghost reflections because of different focus plane per light wavelength. I read that using an OSC with microlensing acts as a secondary filter after the main filter (i.e you keep only red when doing Ha/Sii and the reflections end up in the green and blue that you discard anyway). But on a monochrome it all ends up in the same well. I'll be able to confirm this tonight as I'm shooting the Helix in Ha, if everything works that is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dpastern
I wonder if I can see this with my 4" refractor from LP city skies (with a UHC filter)?
Dave
Can't see why not but it's bloody faint.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tornado33
Nice sharp image there.
Scott
Quote:
Originally Posted by TrevorW
Good One Marc
nice tracking
Thanks guys. Sharp alright but still lacks details. I don't know if it's shortage of data or aperture. We'll see what the C11 at F/2 does tonight. I'm excited.
I got $10 says that the C11 + HS pulls out more nebulosity in 10x1min subs than this image got in 10x10min... Once and for all throwing the idea that F ratio and aperture do not make much difference for imaging...
This however, is very nice, Much nicer in fact than any helix shot I've done to date.. I find the helix a real pain in the bum to image.. I've attempted it 3 times now, each time I've failed miserably.. Good luck to you mate!
I got $10 says that the C11 + HS pulls out more nebulosity in 10x1min subs than this image got in 10x10min... Once and for all throwing the idea that F ratio and aperture do not make much difference for imaging...
This however, is very nice, Much nicer in fact than any helix shot I've done to date.. I find the helix a real pain in the bum to image.. I've attempted it 3 times now, each time I've failed miserably.. Good luck to you mate!
Thanks Alex. All set up now. No turning back now. Fans are on, mirror cooling. The only thing I'm worried about a bit is fogging up the QHY8 as it's pointing down. I have put a null adapter (empty nosepiece) and screwed it directly into the hyperstar adapter. It's sealed by the Baader Ha filter on the other side. So the distance between the Ha filter glass and the CCD is actually less than the standard nosepiece length, so there's less air trapped into it too.... we'll see.... oh, and I blew dry the hell out of it too in the bathroom prior. At this stage I'm not even worried about collimation. I wanna shoot "something", anything will do. If I can focus, close enough - all good
I think you'll find it will be OK with the QHY8 pointed down... worst comes to worst, a small dew heater band wrapped around the the null adapter will stop any dewing issues... although thats just one more cable hanging through the light path... You could also get very small sillica gel pouch from jaycar or somewhere similar and fit that somewhere inside the QHY8 to suck up moisture... I've seen that done before... worked well...
I agree, tonight, worry less about collimation, worry more about getting some data, even if the stars are a little out of shape, it will still be interesting to see how much light it sucks in... Tackle collimation and other required adjustments next time!
Dave you should get it from home with a UHC. I have got it from the Gold Coast with a 4 inch refractor and DSLR (350D).
Dont know about the outlying second ring but. That is the big difference with Marcs image (what i think makes it so good) compared to the usual rubbish helix I take. You might get it but you'll have to push it.
For inspiration - Eddie Trimachis site show what can be done suburbia and he is just north of Surfers Paradise.
I think you'll find it will be OK with the QHY8 pointed down... worst comes to worst, a small dew heater band wrapped around the the null adapter will stop any dewing issues... although thats just one more cable hanging through the light path... You could also get very small sillica gel pouch from jaycar or somewhere similar and fit that somewhere inside the QHY8 to suck up moisture... I've seen that done before... worked well...
I agree, tonight, worry less about collimation, worry more about getting some data, even if the stars are a little out of shape, it will still be interesting to see how much light it sucks in... Tackle collimation and other required adjustments next time!
Have fun mate.. Have fun!!
Mate, I'm shooting 30s subs unguided everywhere coz I was too lazy polar aligning and setting up the guider. I just grab the C11 by the handle, point with the finder and crank 20 subs in Neb2. I did 20x30s on M8 and I have more data in Ha than the 3h I did with my 5" newt. And I'm not even trying . I'm running quickly out of Hard drive space as the subs pour in. This is madness . I'm going to have stuff to process for the next two weeks at least Feels like cheating, big time... nah ... almost I'm goona wait for the HH to popup over the roof and try there. Man, you guys gotta get yourself one of those HS.
Thats awesome Marc !!!! The way your going we will have to throw a bucket of cold water over you
Quote:
Originally Posted by multiweb
Mate, I'm shooting 30s subs unguided everywhere coz I was too lazy polar aligning and setting up the guider. I just grab the C11 by the handle, point with the finder and crank 20 subs in Neb2. I did 20x30s on M8 and I have more data in Ha than the 3h I did with my 5" newt. And I'm not even trying . I'm running quickly out of Hard drive space as the subs pour in. This is madness . I'm going to have stuff to process for the next two weeks at least Feels like cheating, big time... nah ... almost I'm goona wait for the HH to popup over the roof and try there. Man, you guys gotta get yourself one of those HS.
If that doesn't sound like a glowing review I dont know what does..
"This is madness" being my favourite bit... Thats exactly what I wanted to hear...
From what I'd heard from people in the states, you can do a months worth of targets in one night with the right camera and the hyperstar...
Looks like im going to be looking for an 8" SCT and an small, sensitive camera in the not too distant future!
Great to hear its going nuts.. and I eagerly await the images...
Next time, dont be so lazy, align it, guide it, 20 minute subs on a nice dim target.. .. Im pretty sure Cent A rises in the next few months... Time to challenge Mr Sidonio to an Cent A - Off.. Go deep son!! Go DEEEEEEEPP!!!!
I won't be guiding tonight. I'd have to sticky tape my QHY5 to the finder. But I'll post some pics soon. I just finished processing quickly the M8 widefield. 20x30s so 10min all up. You're not gonna believe it when you see it. Problem now for me is going to be that the data is coming in faster than I can process it.
Here it is: 20x30s unguided. The HS is not collimated and focus is eyeballed. So you can see the potential
Last edited by multiweb; 20-10-2009 at 09:12 PM.
Reason: Picture added
. Tracking was good so tomorrow night I'm going to load the hyperstar with the C11 and shoot the same thing. Now I'm confident I'm not going to break anything. FOV should be similar, maybe a bit bigger but I suspect I'm going to be doing 30s to 1min subs and go to bed waaay earlier than tonight. Will be a good comparison test.
Sharp alright but still lacks details. I don't know if it's shortage of data or aperture. We'll see what the C11 at F/2 does tonight. I'm excited. 
The only thing I'm worried about a bit is fogging up the QHY8 as it's pointing down. 
If I can focus, close enough - all good 
. I'm running quickly out of Hard drive space as the subs pour in. This is madness 
. I'm going to have stuff to process for the next two weeks at least 
