Crux to Carina

[Martin Pugh]

Good evening.

Had enough room in my existing obs to stand up another pier, Paramount MX and a Canon lens attached to an SBIG STXL11002. This piece of sky very low right now, but of course at this image scale, it doesn't really matter.

A mere 25 minutes per colour, plus a few spoiled frames due to cloud to blend in and make the brighter stars in the field more prominent and aesthetically pleasing (?).

https://www.martinpughastrophotography.spac e/star-clusters#/crux-to-carina/

Click on the image on the page to load a higher resolution version.

Cheers
Martin

[Atmos]

Really nice Martin.
What f/stop did you have the lens set at?

[Martin Pugh]

Thank you Colin.

As a professional lens, this particular model is absolutely terrible wide open. For perfect stars edge to edge, it needs to operate at f8! I used f6.3 in this image.

cheers
Martin

[RickS]

A bit of a change of pace for you, Martin? A lovely result, of course...

[gregbradley]

A fantastic image Martin. I love these lens images. I am in the middle of doing a mosaic with one.

Generally speaking I have found fast lenses to have bad coma and chromatic aberration wide open as they are designed more as portrait lenses where the background is typically blurred so its not an issue.

Greg.

[Martin Pugh]

Thanks Greg/Rick

Once, I bought a lens that was supposed to have been the bees knees for astro, pinpoint stars wideopen and all that, and it was dire.

I really want to try out the Sigma Art lens at some point.

Rick - well, I like to be 'multi-disciplined' in astro hence why I have bought gear to cover all bases and I certainly had to put that Canon 5D MKIII/20-70mm pro lens (competition prize) to goid use. I did just sell my Solarmax though.

Thanks again!

Cheers
Martin

[Peter Ward]

I like it...it has an Akira Fuji look.

Nice one :thumbsup:

[Placidus]

That's a gorgeous image, Martin. We particularly like the way the bright stars like gamma crucis show beautiful colour but the background is more subtle. Perfect contrast in the dust lanes.

[topheart]

Just Beautiful!!
Cheers,
Tim

[Martin Pugh]

Thank you very much for the comments.

Cheers
Martin

[Paul Haese]

Excellent colour, contrast and saturation. Very nice rendering.:thumbsup:

[Martin Pugh]

Thanks Paul.

Actually returned to the same area tonight to add 90 minutes of Ha.

cheers
Martin

[Retrograde]

A lovely wide-field already with great star colours but it takes on an extra dimension with the Ha added. :thumbsup:

[Martin Pugh]

Thanks Pete.

The Ha had a dramatic effect on this image but blending it at this scale makes for an interesting task.

cheers
Martin

[mountainjoo]

Remarkable difference with the added Ha, I keep coming back for another look and it's turned out really nicely. It's a great field to browse.

[markas]

Very nice image. Colours look great.

Mark

[gregbradley]

The Ha addition looks marvellous and differentiates it from a DSLR image better.

An excellent image. I'll be doing some lens imaging myself tonight with my $125 telescope!:lol:

Greg.

[Stevec35]

A great result Martin - so much Ha lurking in that area.

Cheers

Steve

[Martin Pugh]

Thanks again Gents.

Greg - using this combo from an obs really works, but of course not very useful out in the field given the weight. Indeed, a Vixen Polarie would not be able to support an STXL and FW.

Clear Skies

Martin

[gregbradley]

Yes and that factor made me decide against one of these QHY Sony CMOS cameras. They really require a computer and power.

In my comment though I was referring to my $125 ( I think it was even less) 75mm Pentax lens in this case not the Polarie. I use it with my Proline 16803 piggybacked on my CDK17 and AP1600. The AP1600 is so strong that even badly unbalanced it chugs along without noticing!

A Polarie though is great fun for Milky Way mirrorless or DSLR images. A bit colder out there in the field though at the moment!

Greg