NGC-891 with ASA Astrograph

[floastro]

Hi guys,


Located in Andromeda constellation, this beautiful galaxy was in my
project with my ASA Astrograph.

The last time i took this galaxy in 2003, i've used my Meade 12" UHTC
OTA.

The exposures have begun in October 2007 with the first 4 nights. But
i stopped them when the bad weather is arrived. One year later, late
in September, i finished this NGC-891.

The difficulty to me is i don't have a permanent observatory. It was
the first time i tried that to finish an image.

This is the result i obtained with 6 nights of work :

http://www.poigetdigitalpics.com/NGC891AstrographPresent.html (http://www.poigetdigitalpics.com/NGC891AstrographPresent.html)



Warmest Regards,

Florent :)

[Hagar]

Hi Florent, Lovely image with very tight clean stars. The detail and colour in the Galaxy and stars is very very nice. Look forward to seeing more.

[multiweb]

Totally agree with Doug. Lovely deep shot. Top work.:thumbsup:

[Phil]

Great shot nice and deep nice colour well done.
Phil

[Dennis]

A stunning and most beautiful image, the detail is quite breathtaking.

Cheers

Dennis

[gregbradley]

A beautiful image Florent. Really sharp and eye catching.

Greg.

[leon]

Have to agree with the others excellent deep sky image, well done.

Leon

[Ric]

What a fine image, very enjoyable.

Very nicely done Florent.

[AlexN]

I love it... Would be great to see a bigger image.

[Bassnut]

Nice work Florent, although its nice to see the Meade pic almost as good ;).

Ive heard of problems with hanging a heavy cam on an ASA, cant see a problem with this posted pic. Have you had any issues with cam wheight your ASA ?.

[Bassnut]

BTW, thats a very sexy web site you have. The M51 particularly is spectacular, one of the best Ive seen, even tho its upside down ;)

[floastro]

Thank you very much guys for your nice comments.

It was a great experience to me to test that on 2 different years.

I love this Astrograph. The image quality is there.

If we compare the Meade image and the Astrograph image, we can see a superb luminosity from the Astrograph image. Since i use my ASA, i have been very impressive by this fact.

Thanks once again.

Warmest Regards,

Florent :)

[floastro]

Thanks Bassnut. :)

The Astrograph have had a big problem with the JMI new generation Crayford. The new JMI seems bad for CCD imaging.

My ASA Astrograph has been delivered in September 2006 with the JMI old generation Crayford. The old generation was solid and has not the problem with a heavy CCD.

Now ASA sells all these Astrographs with a new Crayford made and designed by themselves to replace the JMI new generation.

Tom Davis, in the USA, uses his ASA 12" Astrograph with the old JMI and his STL-11000 with no problem.

Regards,

Florent :)

[strongmanmike]

I think I commented on this iamge when you released it on another site a while ago..? Great work - lovely field of view!

I see large faint but dark circles or patches around stars in the image, what has caused this?

I am glad your experience with your ASA has been favourable.

Mike Sidonio

[floastro]

Hello Mike,

Thank you for your message.

It is the first time i'm posting this image on the forums :). The other image was NGC-3718 and you wrote a comment late in May.


About the dark circles, i displayed the full resolution TIFF 16 bytes image under PhotoShop CS2 with the zoom at 400x but i did not find dark circles. Maybe the JPEG on the web. The TIFF image has not this problem.

I love this telescope and i know you've had a bad experience with yours.

It gives me a great luminosity in my images and i never saw that before.

Thanks once again.

Warmest Regards,

Florent :)

[strongmanmike]

Hi Florent

Sorry about mixing upthe two images...are you sure though? I could swear I commented on this image before? :shrug: but perhaps I am :screwy: :D

The dark areas/patches are for sure a result of something in your processing, perhaps gradient removal..? They are deffinitely there looking at the images displayed at your web site, both the wide field and close-up colour versions.

I was only asking out of intereset as it is not that noticable and the image is still really good over-all :thumbsup:

Mike

[gregbradley]

Hi Florent and Fred,

Maybe you hadn't heard of the other problems but it was a lot worse than just a low quality focuser from a supplier (why were they using JMI anyway on a high end scope? I thought Feathertouch or Moonlite were the top of the industry).

a) Spider too thin causing flexure and unable to hold collimation
b) Primary mirror holder only has 3 support points instead of the usual 9 or more. Again causing flexure and distortions
c) I read reports of the tube itself flexing under some of these heavy cameras. You are using a light ST10XME. An STL11 is a relatively light camera. The newer larger cameras like an Apogee U16M or even more so the FLI Proline 16803 etc are way heavier with their filter wheels putting tremendous strain on the structure/focuser etc.

I am glad your unit works with your ST10XME but that is not everyone's setup and the modern cameras are getting heavier and heavier. No doubt SBigs new STX cameras will be similarly heavy.

Mike's ASA had pinched optics I believe, another received a chipped mirror.

So buyer beware is still the primary policy with this sort of poorly engineered product. ASA has been incredibly slow to address these problems. They were known about something like 2 years ago.

It should be taken off the market until it does in fact meet the specification it markets itself to be.

Meade was sued for claiming they had an advanced RC. This is much the same thing and ASA would have no valid defence.

I see on Astromart Bruce Karbal has been trying to sell a "fixed up" ASA 10 inch now for several months. The market is quite well informed and knows where ASA products are at. Hardly anyone buys an expensive scope without doing their homework. Most larger purchases are highly considered.
Who wants to buy an expensive "high end" scope that is possibly going to be beta product.

Greg.

[Satchmo]

Greg, Could you be more specific about this. I thought the ASA astrographs were transparently a straight Newtonian with a `Phillip Keller' brand Wynne corrector behind the focus?

[gregbradley]

Yes it is, what I meant was marketing a product that clearly is not fit for purpose.

It'd be like buying a HSV Commodore but it was really only a 4 cylinder and the gear box was only suitable for a really small car etc etc.

In other words the enigineering design is clearly deficient compared to the big sales hype. Sold as-is, it will not handle modern cameras, it is very likely to suffer from flexure except when using DSLRs or light CCD cameras.

The only images I have seen with this type of scope that were good were almost always taken with a lightweight camera.

Greg.

[winensky]

A fine image with lovely colour rendition.

[tonybarry]

A great pic. Envy index is running high.

Regards,
Tony Barry

[Jen]

Wow that is a very nice pic great work cheers :thumbsup:

[floastro]

Thank you so much guys for all your last messages. :thumbsup:


Now, i am waiting my TeleVue NP-101is to test it at the end of this month.

With the Astrograph and the NP, i will have two compatible instruments for a future SBIG 35mm CCD chip, scheduled late in 2009.

Thanks once again.

Warmest Regards,

Florent :)

[Octane]

Florent,

Amazing image. Love it!

Regards,
Humayun