no 5th spike Jewel Box

[richardo]

Hi all,
recieved my 1/20th wave secondary from Antares the
other day and have just
had my first night out with it.
My 5th spike on my previous images was caused by my old ProtoStar minor
being undersized and star light hitting the rail edge...

Now I'm happy to be able to tackle bright clusters and star
groups with full illumination with this beaut!!... yeee haaa.!

An absolute shocker of a night though with a layer of thin upper
level cloud plaguing the whole session.
Every star in the sky had a haze to it, so I sort of felt
like I was swamped by pollution you could say :))

Am really impressed with this new secondary and how well
the small stars are resolved... for a bad night had my
FWHM down to 1.2 at one stage.... but did bounce
all over the place...

Have a few issues with some movement with both
my secondary and primary cells... but that's another
story.:shrug:
Any way here's a link to my front page if you'd like to take a
look......
http://www.baytop-observatory.com/

Hope your all getting out and about..

All the best
Rich

[Ric]

Very nice Rich, you've captured some nice colours.
The Jewel box is always one of my favourites.

Cheers

[AJames]

Great Image, however, just for your own interest, there is one likely member of the cluster you have only just missed.

I have attached a figure showing where this other star is placed. It shows the Outer Regions of the Jewel Box and includes the faint naked-eye blue star HIP 62732, which displays the same proper motions as all the open cluster stars. If this is truly a cluster member, then it is the cluster’s brightest star! - even though it is some 15.3 arc minutes from the peak of the ‘A’ in the Jewel Box!

The other marked yellowish star, HIP 62646, is not a member. However, it can be used to identify the field orientation and the additional star HIP 62723.

Additional studies have further shown that other fainter stars may extend towards the south - most of which appear yellow below and left of the other cluster stars.

The orientation of the Figure is East to West (East being at the top)

[Dennis]

Beautiful image Rich - really beautiful.

Cheers

Dennis

[iceman]

What a lovely image of one of my favourite open clusters.

[ving]

rich image rich! :)

lovely!

[RB]

Beautiful image Rich.
Just gorgeous.

:thumbsup:

[Dr Nick]

Well done... ;)

[strongmanmike]

I dunno, I kinda liked the fifth spike, it was rather intriguing and mysterious :)

What size is the new secondary?

Looks like the high cloud showed around the bright cluster stars, or else the Jewel Box has a new faint nebula associated with it?

The skies at SPSP were rather poor too actually, clear but hazzy :(

Nice work though Ricki.

Mike

[richardo]

Thanks for taking a look Ric, Nyx, Dennis, Mike (aka Iceman), Dave(Ving), Andrew, and Nick.

Thanks for the info there Nyx, very interesting indeed!!...... I'll remember this when framing it the next time around.

Thanks also for the nice comments chaps!.

All the best:hi:
Rich

[richardo]

Hey Mikie da man.... yeah a few have commented saying they liked my anonymous spike..... sort of a signature... I could say I'm sad to see it go, but on the other foot, bright stars and clusters won't look like a spider had been busy being symetrical.. and I won't be afraid...... anymore.:D

I went up to a 3.1" (aprox78mm). It should be good when I step up to a bigger chip, however the 11k kodak chip will be a little over size... more planning on the Kodak KAI4021M chip as it will let me still use my 1 1/4" filters and still obtain 100% illumination...

The blueish fuz around the cluster is definitely the effect of the 'fuzzy' night.
I've done another version with the gradients removed via PixInsight's background extraction so will replace this version.

Bummer about the star party..... hope your get some decent weather your way soon....
Other wise there'll be no plaster left on the walls at your joint.. :mad2: :sadeyes: :(
Thanks again for the comments.

All the best
Rickie Richardo