Galaxy fest

[peter_4059]

After upgrading my EQ6 to synscan last week, last night I had the first opportunity to try it out. I was also interested to see if my DSI cleaning attempt had permanently wrecked the camera.

Armed with a list of good looking galaxies (thanks Allan), a DSI and my ED80 here's what I captured. I must admit I am really impressed with the Synscan. Every object was in the DSI field of view.

I am also impressed with the DSI as these are relatively dim objects considering the small aperture and my proximity to the city (at one point the camera was still picking up the galaxy when all I could see was cloud). Can't wait to see these objects through the 10" newt.

As far as the camera is concerned, the jury is still out on my cleaning attempts. There appears to be a smear in some of these pics - not sure if it is on the chip, noise or something else.

The third image has no post processing apart from opening in FITS liberator and save to JPEG. I left it this way to highlight the poor polar alignment and the beauty of Envisage's "stack on the fly".

All images at 30 sec subs - typically 25 to 50 stacked.

Obviously not your textbook DSO images but really satisfying to have them pop into view with the click of the mouse.

I'm giving the DSI and the Synscan the :thumbsup:

[renormalised]

Just looking at them, there is a little streaking of the stars but it's nothing you couldn't live with as most are pretty close to round. As far as detail goes, given how you took the piccies, I'd say they're pretty good. You have some very faint objects in those pics...much fainter than those galaxies. Do you have an idea of how faint they are??. Many are probably background galaxies but some will be stars.

Oh, and an ant walked across your FoV in the third piccie...he left his footprints in a little line on the CCD:)

[allan gould]

Really nice shots Peter. Ive been waiting to see them.
What were the NGC numbers ?
When you get to a dark site you'll be able to go deeper than with the 80mm Meade using the 10".
But really nice easpecially now that the DSI is cleaned.
We should have a shootout between the DSI and Watec 120N+

[prova]

Peter, what version of Synscan are you running and have you noticed any glitches?

[peter_4059]

Thanks for the comments.

My planatarium software doesn't show the faint stars so I have no idea of their mag but would welcome an answer if anyone knows. I'm planning to try these again next weekend from a dark site through my Newt. It will be interesting to see how these compare.

The objects were M100, NGC2525, NGC2835, NGC5170 and NGC5247. I left the ant prints on NGC2835 to show how much the scope drifted.

I ended upgrading to the latest Synscan version (3.21 I think?) no glitches so far.

Peter

[glenc]

The faint galaxy to the right of M100 is N4328, Vmag 13.3. The star above N4328 is mag 15.3 and the galaxy above M100 is N4323, Vmag 14.0.

[peter_4059]

Thanks - I really must work out how to display the fainter stars in Astroplanner - I must have them somewhere in one of the 20 odd catalogues I downloaded. Also I'm not sure if Cartes du Ciel has more than one catalogue?

[theodog]

Go the galaxies Peter.
Nice images.
Well done.

[Ric]

Some lovely galaxies Peter, well done.

You've really got the little DSI earning its keep.

Cheers

[Garyh]

Nice work with a ED80 and DSI Peter :thumbsup:

[peter_4059]

Thanks Jeff/Ric/Gary. There are so many of these interesting face on galaxies to image - could keep me occupied for years but finding them quickly sure helps.

I've been playing with both AP and CDC tonight but still can't seem to display the faint stars in these pics. Does anyone know what catalogue I need?

Peter