Ngc 1365

[Mickoid]

Grabbed a short integration time on this last night from home in an orange zone. Clouds were approaching as I was polar aligning the scope and I just got it done before Octans was hidden by some high level Mackerel clouds. I could see further out to the west the bank of cloud had cleared, so I gave it half an hour and it was clear again. The night was a bit breezy but quite mild, warm enough to be out there in shorts.

This galaxy is nice and high at the moment so once astro twilight has ended, it's nearly overhead. I missed out on getting the faint stuff on the spiral arms but seeing and transparency was good enough to gather some nice detail from such light polluted skies.

Captured with my Modded 550d using a UVIR cut filter at 1600 iso. I took 43 subs but wind affected 12 of them so I only used 31 X 60 seconds. They were taken through an 8inch f5 Newtonian, unguided on a HEQ5pro mount. :)

[LostInSp_ce]

Nice one Mick!

[Jasp05]

Wow. 60sec unguided subs with 8 inch newt on a HEQ5pro. You must have that setup dialed in Mick.

It's turned out really nice given the short integration time as well. :thumbsup:

[Mickoid]

Yeah, I got the PA very close and the balance must have been good as well. Thinking about it now, I quite possibly could have gone to 90 seconds and reduced the ISO back to 800. This may have helped with noise but maybe not the thermal noise, it was a mild night and the sensor would not have liked the extra exposure time. :(


Thanks, glad you liked it!

[Outcast]

Nice one Michael,

Haven't had a crack at imaging a galaxy yet, must get on to that...

[Startrek]

Great effort considering unguided subs , magnitude 10 dim object , light polluted skies and a HEQ5 mount which has a recommended AP payload rating of only 8 to 9 kg
Your payload would be well over 9kg so you must be extremely well balanced and polar aligned
Well done !!!

My Bintel GSO 8” f5 newt with 60mm guide scope , ZWO guide camera , image camera Canon 600D , Baader coma corrector, finder, auto focuser, dew bands, all cables etc.... weighs in at 14.5 kg , and I use an EQ6-R mount

[Mickoid]

Yes Martin, I am well above the 9 kg payload. Due to no guiding, I had no guide scope, no guide camera and I removed the finder scope, that helped lighten the load. The 550d body is one of the lightest dslrs Canon made, one reason I chose it for AP. I guess I just lucked it out on the night, balance and PA were good and the atmosphere behaved itself during my short session out there. Sometimes things go your way, another night and everything seems to be going wrong. I might try this again on the weekend from a darker site if the weather is favourable. It would be nice to eliminate the thermal noise which appears in this shot. A cooler night would help.Thanks for the pat on the back Martin, I'm glad you were impressed with my efforts on this one.


There's still a few up there to have a go at Carlton, a dark sky certainly helps achieve a better result. Thanks for your compliment. :)