Aristarchus

[anthony2302749]

Very successful night last night. More work on tweaking the system and actually got the collimation tweaked using MetaGuide. Also got a nice little widget in the form of Mini Controller for Meade LX200 to run the telescope from the laptop, works nicely. At the time of imaging the moon was around 94% illuminated and I was drawn to Aristarchus because of the remarkable rille, Vallis Schroteri.

Setup is a Meade LX200 GPS 12" f10 on an EQ Wedge, Zwo ASI224MC at prime focus. The image run was 2min collecting 7685 frame with 11% stack and processed with AS4 and adjusted with Registax.

What is remarkable about this image is how clean the data was which made the end product, so striking.

Stay tuned.

Cheers

[Dave882]

That’s a beautiful shot with some lovely detail in the crater and around Schröter's Valley and beyond. Great work!

[Stefan Buda]

Hi Anthony,

I was out at the same time, tuning the 16" Dall-Kirkham and trying to achieve first light after the rebuild, and the seeing was not too bad. You can see my Aristarchus in the ATM section.

You need to use a focal extender if you want to get the full resolution that a 12" should be capable of. Other than that, your image is processed nicely without over sharpening. Perhaps it can be brightened a bit more.
Your imaging was done at 3000mm and mine, also at prime focus, but at 6500mm focal length.

Last night the seeing was worse, so I did not bother.

[Crater101]

I have to agree - very striking capture, well done.

[anthony2302749]

Hi Stefan

Will eventually move on to a focal extender. Currently plan to use eyepiece projection as I have a Tele-extended and quality University Optics Orthoscopic eyepiece acquired back in the day when I was working for Binocular and Telescope Services Centre in Heidelberg and BINTEL in Camberwell. Did have a Televue 2x Powermate but sold it ages ago when I lost internet in astronomy because I worked in the industry. Probably wasn’t a good idea.

Cheers Anthony

[Stefan Buda]

I'm not sure about eyepiece projection as being a good solution. Eyepieces are designed for infinite conjugate ratio. I think that even a cheap Barlow would be a better option.