Ngc5139- first light CFF RC250

[DJT]

What with weather, USB cable issues and ordering the the wrong focuser motor from starlight along with a trip overseas, getting a first light has been a long time coming.

Not the most challenging DSO but it’s great for picking up any collimation issues.


I havnt actually touched collimation yet, still trying to find a window of opportunity with decent seeing and it’s a little off, but straight out of the box, there don’t seem to be any dramas with the mirrors.


Details
NGC5139
RGB 30:30:30 in 5 minute subs from sunny Sydney


CFF RC250mmat F7 with custom field Flattener. Focal length is 1790.
STL6303e
AP900
Processed in PI, really basic stuff, calibration, some light touch NR , photometric colour calibration, followed by HST.


Large image here


CFF RC250 F7 First Light - NGC5139 (https://astrob.in/full/401528/0/)

[codemonkey]

Very nice indeed, David. Great first light. Looks like the new scope is a cracker!

[Atmos]

An excellent first light David. Looks like the collimation may be biased towards the bottom right but it’s still very good on-axis.

[multiweb]

:bowdown: That's superb David, essentially perfect. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Geoff45]

Great image. Nice tiny stars and accurate colour.

[strongmanmike]

A nice Omega there and for a new scope straight out'a the box, that looks pretty good Dave, once tweaked it will be excellent :thumbsup:...hope you don't tweak and make it worse like I did recently :scared: :lol:...but if you do, don't worry you can get it back :thumbsup:

Mike

[Capella_Ben]

Very nice. Looking forward to seeing more.

[DJT]

Thanks everyone for the comments. On Collimation, yeah..a tweak..it should be a lot less fraught than the previous scopes..


Cheers

[Andy01]

Echoing other comments above - a very nice Omega C :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

An impressive first light. Collimation looks pretty close as others have mentioned. Just a bit off on the top right.

Good to see excellent CFF products as I have a CFF scope on order myself.

Greg.

[DJT]

Thanks Andy, much appreciated.

Greg, you can’t declare a CFF order without telling us which one!


I dialed in the Collimation this evening. Given past experiences I had been procrastinating but was done and dusted in just a few minutes.


Very happy 😃

[traveller]

Great first light David.
Just a question on light pollution, did you have a LP filter in the image path? I can't imagine 5 min subs in Sydney without some form of LP suppression.
Thanks
Bo

[DJT]

Hi Bo

No LP filter was used. I do use astrodon LRGB filters in the imaging train Which are designed to exclude much LP from Sodium lights in the red and green so that’s definitely helping.The Products site at astrodon has more info on that .


I do have a street light outside the front of the house which is on a main road and there is a beautifully well floodlit sports field about 200 yards beyond that as well


I am also pretty close to the city.


For processing I just did some photometric colour calibration and SCNR green removal (sorry Marc) in pix insight.


Occasionally I might desaturate the background but for this image it wasn’t needed.


Am currently imaging M83 which is nice and bright and LP is not affecting the image enough to worry about. Basic processing is dealing with it.

[traveller]

Thank you for the detailed explanation.
Even more impressive!
Bo