Ngc 6334

[Mickoid]

The sky was surprisingly clear in the outer North Eastern suburbs of Melbourne last night. Not wanting to set up any serious equipment with work the next day, I used an old Pentax SMC 135mm prime lens ( complete with fungus ) with my modded Canon 550d and took a combination of UVIR and CLS CCD filtered shots on a tripod with a Sightron Nano Tracker.

There's a lot of dust around in this region and I battled with a waxing moon and light pollution to extract as much detail in the Cats Paw as I could in post processing. I managed to reveal the 'Paw' but at the sacrifice of colour balance in the surrounding area.

There was also a fair bit of CA and internal filter reflections from the Clip filters for some reason with this lens. I guess after nearly forty years, it may be time to retire this lens from service!

[PKay]

Well done Mick.

Nice to have gear that doesn't owe you :)

[Mickoid]

Thanks Peter, yes, this old lens has performed well for me over the years but it seems the coatings are suffering from the ever increasing fungal infestation. I may try this area again with the apo triplet refractor, it's just finding the motivation to drag out the serious gear on these cold nights for me at the moment.

[Atmos]

For an old Allen’s in suberbia it has turned out quite respectable, even if the colour balance isn’t perfect.

[xelasnave]

Very nice.
Alex

[sil]

nice, gather some more subs find the whole kitty maybe? must be up there :) good to see another using the gear they have got and pushing the boundaries.