first light colour - SX HR694

[Shiraz]

Hi
Finally got the SX H694 camera back after repair of a faulty Peltier. Had a few hours without cloud, and got some images to test it out - the moon was fairly bright, but M20 was far enough away for colour. Then spent many hours trying to work out how to get Pixinsight to do what I wanted with the results…...still got a way to go on that front.

Had some optics faults in these images – have since fixed the image plane tilt and tidied up the diffraction sources (I hope), but there is some astigmatism that has crept in from somewhere that I still have to sort out. Of course the EQ6 has relatively high tracking noise and the stars are a bit ropey at the scale of not much more than 1 arcsec/pixel.

Overall though, am pleased with the first colour test – the camera is sensitive and quiet, the system resolution is good and scale is suitable - am doing the work-up with a 200f4 scope and it looks like the design spec of 250-300f4 for the final scope will be about right.

The M20 image is cropped and scaled by a factor of 0.5 to fit the posting limit. A cropped section of the nebula is shown at native scale in the second image and I was stoked to see the jet that is just visible as a tiny horizontal thread extending to the left of the central cloud feature.

M20 - LRGB - 22:13:9:13 minutes - 30sec L subs, 40sec RGB subs

Thanks for looking. Regards ray

[gregbradley]

That's an outstanding M20 Ray. I find the colours and the transparency of the image very immersive. Detail is top notch. Lovely background, gorgeous star colours. Really well processed with what appears to be superb data.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Looking good ray, looking good.

Lovely colours and the close up looks very crisp.

I will be (hopefully) reconfiguring my rig and starting with my H694 and OAG on the AG12 when the new observatory (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/building_wallaroo_observatory) is up and running...maybe by next week..?

Mike

[DavidU]

That's a corker Ray.:thumbsup:

[Larryp]

Great images. Ray

[Shiraz]

thanks for those very generous comments Greg - I was very pleased with the star colours.
Was impressed at just how effective Pixinsight is - not all that intuitive, but very powerful and it helped get the best out of this data.


Thanks very much Mike. You are going to love the camera - it is just so sensitive and quiet - haven't used a calibration frame yet. Modelling showed that short subs were the go and the real world agreed.
At f3.8, you will probably need to adjust the image plane tilt - mine was way out after the repair, but I made up a simple jig based on the one on their website using a daggy bit of wood and a GSO focuser - it did the trick quite effectively - will post a pic if it would help.

regards ray

[Shiraz]

Hi Dave - thanks



thanks laurie

regards ray

[E_ri_k]

That's a fantastic image! Really crisp and clear. You have done a really good job!

Well done :)

Erik

[RickS]

Great first light, Ray, and also good to see the theory work in practice :thumbsup:

[Shiraz]

thanks very much Erik.


Thanks Rick. I was fairly confident that the modelling was sound, but nothing beats having the rubber on the road :) . Thanks for your encouragement along the way.

regards ray

[johnnyt123]

Ray, if I didn't know any better I would say you were outside the atmosphere orbiting the earth when you took this image.
Looks very crisp and clear. Well done.

[multiweb]

+1. Awesome shot. Great colours and very sharp details. :thumbsup:

[LewisM]

Beautiful, beautiful result.

Starlight Xpress never cease to amaze me in every sense of the word. I am SO happy with my SXVR-M25C that I am doubtful I will be changing it for a LONG time.

[DavidNg]

Wow...

[Paul Haese]

NIce looking image Ray. Star colours look quite nice and the nebulosity looks natural too. I think you could stretch the data just a little more though, but that is really a very minor consideration.

[Shiraz]

thanks John for such a generous comment. It was fun to look at the raw images and realise that the seeing was pretty good.


Thanks Marc - appreciated


Thanks Lewis. My SX went down a bit in status when it died, but it seems to be working OK now - was impressed at Terry's immediate response to questions.


thank you David


Thanks Paul. I tried more stretching, but ran into noise so left it at this level. would have been better with longer exposures, but clouds fixed that - I could see them coming and banged off four sequences in what I judged to be the available imaging window.

regards ray

[sjastro]

Excellent image Ray.

Steven

[Rod771]

Ray, that is very very good.

Well done :thumbsup:

[RobF]

What a top class Trifid. Beautiful image!

[DJT]

Wow, Thats pretty impressive with such short subs. Loads of fine detail there

You must be well chuffed with the CCD.

:thumbsup:

[Shiraz]

Hi Steven - thank you


thanks Rod


Thank you Rob


Thanks David. Yes, the CCD/camera seems to be living up to it's promise, particularly WRT noise levels and sensitivity. modelling showed that very short subs were possible and that seems to be the case. Looking forward to trying it out on a galaxy or two when the moon goes away.


Regards ray