Omega Centuari

[RyanJones]

Hi all,

This was an image that I never intended to take. With the threat of clouds coming I decided to take the opportunity to setup my C5 and collimate it after some repairs to the secondary mounting that had kept me from imaging on Monday night ( the clearest night I've seen at home for a while )

After collimating and confirming the success of my repairs the predicted clouds still weren't here. So I decided to throw my newish C9.25 for a little visual work ( rare for me ). I couldn't believe how well I could resolved the stars in this cluster ! Typical of me, I had to image it !

With the threat of cloud at some point it was a rush. My PA was average at around half an arc second. I was slightly East heavy but I didn't feel like going and grabbing my second counterweight and I haven't got any sort of guide setup for this OTA yet. Needless to say I wasn't expecting much.

No calibration frames so please excuse the artifacts.

16 mins integration of 20 second subs at ISO 800

[Startrek]

Ryan
That’s a good effort for only 16 minutes of exposure time
Also regarding your PA I think you mean under half an arc “minute” not arc second
Remember an arc minute is a 60th of a degree and an arc second is a 3600th of a degree
I usually get my PA down to between an arc minute and half an arc minute which is good enough, then guiding looks after the rest
Most guiding software like PHD2 which I use with my 50mm mini guide scope and ZWOASI120MM-S camera can only get you just below an arc second on a good night, although some guys can guide down to half a arc sec with off axis guiders and the like
Nice image
Cheers

[RyanJones]

Hi Martin,

Thank you. Yes you're 100% right. I was deciding if I should write 30 arc seconds or about half an arc minute and I ended up writing a combination of the two ! Yes, so my PA was only half an minute. I normally get it down to about 8-10 seconds then guide. As I've said though, I've got no guider setup for the 9.25 yet which is why I don't image with it normally.

Cheers

[xelasnave]

Thats what I like to see Ryan..get an image no matter what☺.
That scope would be handy for gallaxies I expect.
Alex

[RyanJones]

Thanks Alex :)

I actually pointed it at M83 after this image and cranked up the iso but the hot pixels just killed it. I got away with the cluster but not the galaxy but I will return when I'm a little more ready to use it properly.:thumbsup: