First Light 10" Newt.

[Tandum]

I got myself a 10" dob and finally plonked it on the EQ6 and managed focus with the starlight camera. It's certainly a struggle for the eq6 to move it around, out of 26 x 5 minute Luminence subs, only 4 didn't have eggy stars or clouds floating across the image. Same with the 150sec 2 X binned colour, only about 3 or 4 usable for each colour due to clouds. Flats where obtained by sitting an 8" light box on top the 10" scope :)

The filtered image is out of neat image and it appears to have destroyed it ?

[David Fitz-Henr]

Hello Robin,

Nice work for your first light ! I take it that these are unguided images, so that is why you had to throw away most subs ? I guess you may need to reduce the duration and take more shots in order to increase the signal / noise ratio, but you still managed to get some good detail in the galaxy anyway !

For the filtered image it appears that although Neat Image has smoothed the noise, it has also given the galaxy a pronounced artistic look ! Are there parameters you can set in Neat Image to fine tune the smoothing ? I am just starting out using ImagesPlus which has some good tools, but I may look at getting Photoshop going forwards.

David

[peter_4059]

Hi Robin,

Not a bad start with the new tube considering the clouds etc. It's pretty tough to get the noise down with so few subs. Have you tried shorter subs to see if you get better looking stars?

Peter

[Tandum]

That's guided dave but with a WO70ED so the guidescope is only 400mm odd. There was a bit of a breeze about last night and the thing is like a sail :)

Pete, I want longer subs not shorter :) The losmandy head and plate for the eq6 have been in the mail from ADM in the US since september 6th so they should arrive soon surely. The moonlight focuser came from New York region as well and arrived in about 6days. Once they arrive I can look at better rings for it.

I should spend more time colliminating it, I think that could be better as well.

[David Fitz-Henr]

OK, then you may have better luck on a night with less breeze then. I have a WO 70ED as well that I may use as a guidescope for my 200mm - what guide camera do you have ?

[telecasterguru]

They are fairly decent images for a first light. Have they been cropped?

Frank

[renormalised]

Not bad shots for first light, Robin:D

However, that EQ6 will be struggling with a 10" on it. Especially if it's a particularly heavy OTA. No 10" is light. The ADM plates will probably shore it up a bit, but you're going to need to balance this fella pretty well and keep it out of any breeze.

You may find you're going to have to opt for a G11 (if you can get one 2nd hand, all the more merrier).

[Tandum]

Dave, I use the qhy5 as a guider. I plug it into the WO with a cheapy 1.25 diagonal.

Full frame, not cropped Frank, the starlight is a 1.3Mpixel cooled mono camera.

Yes Carl, the plan is to move to losmandy mounting gear and get a G11 when I win lotto :D

[renormalised]

Go grab yourself a ticket for tonight. Tonight's your lucky night!!!:D

[jjjnettie]

Congratulations on your new scope Robin.

[Hagar]

Hard to make it work in those conditions Robin but the scope seems to have done a pretty good job considering. Looking forward to seeing more when better conditions prevail.

[Tandum]

Cheers Jeanette, I wanted to first light it at Barambah but it was not to be :( I didn't get it aligned and collminated till past 10pm anyway and I'm sure if I did that up there I'd still be messing about with it now :D

Doug, I found one of the rings was loose when I pulled it off the mount on Saturday arvo. I was just too keen to get a camera on it :) Still, for 4 x 5minute L subs it's sucking in buckets of light and has the image scale I was looking for on galaxies. Now I have focus I can tune the thing up a bit.

[RobF]

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself Robin - looks like plenty of challenges ahead, but tantalising what's on offer there! Good work on getting it tweaked that far!

[AlexN]

Looks fantastic!! I got myself a fair few hours on this target to process up, although not anywhere near as up-close and personal!! :)

Good going mate!

[Tandum]

Cheers guys. The ADM gear cleared customs today. That took a while.
Hope you had fun up there Alex. Saturday was crap down here too.

[AlexN]

Sure did have some fun... the seeing was fantastic up north last night... friday was ok at times, saturday was cloudy for the most part..