Another one for Mike :)

[multiweb]

Here's a shot of ... guess what? ;) That I'm pretty happy with considering. I did that last night with the C11 and the new corrector.
I don't think the moon is a real bother at all when you do long FL on a bright object. With the spacing tubes and all this is probalbly close to 3.5m FL. Image scale is under 0.5asp.

I have some massive field problems at that FL that I need to sort out with spacing and alignment but the details are there and I'll get there eventually. Chonky stars close up... and micro guiding issues but the AO will level all this.

Exposure time is 29x3min with the QHY8 - no filter. I guided with the QHY5 on a 8x50mm GSO finder. Only lost a couple of subs due to clouds passing but it got 100% clear after 1:00am and I finished on M16 pillars area which I'll try to process later.

I'm excited about this shot because although there are a lot of things wrong with it starting with the star field and shapes it shows potential and when I get the SCT new laser collimation kit I should be very very close to the sweet spot. :)

Enjoy the pic. There's a higher res here (http://www.multiweb.com.au/astro/M8_core_cf.jpg) [750KB] and a 1:1 full field here (http://www.multiweb.com.au/astro/M8_core_RGB_f.jpg) [1.7MB]. :thumbsup:

PS: on another note if you haven't upgraded to CCDStack version 2 do it. It's so much faster and not as RAM hungry as the older version was. I can now stack 20+ subs in one go on a 2GB RAM XP machine. Before I could only do batches of 10.

PPS: sorry Mike ;)

[Tilt]

This is very awesome indeed, I love the detail. The QHY8 has no problems in yielding great images for you.

Michael

[danielsun]

Just beautiful Marc, :thumbsup: Not far off that sweet spot at all and very smooth.
Nice work ;).

Cheers Daniel.

[TrevorW]

Good one Marc although IMHO longer subs would probably do it better even with a full moon

Thats not M8 is it !!

[Paul K]

Nice image Marc..:)

[starfinder]

Lovely image Marc. Smooth colour, good guiding and nice detail in the dust clouds.

Russ

[alan meehan]

Nice shot inside the lagoon Marc nice and smooth good detail well done
Alan

[mill]

Very smooth with plenty of detail :thumbsup:
If you could make it 10 Minute subs you will get even more detail than this.

[strongmanmike]

.....:rolleyes:.......:zzz2:

:poke: :D

[gregbradley]

3500mm woo hoo. That'd make a nice galaxy imaging machine.

Nice initial image. Good detail around the centre of the nebula.

Greg.

[multiweb]

Thanks Michael. :thumbsup: Yes it is a good little cam very practical and easy to use. I love it. :)


Thanks Daniel. Yes, the learning never ends but I'm getting very excited at the prospect of taking pics at longer FL. It's a whole new world of details in there.


Thanks Trev... Yes it is. :lol:




Thanks Paul & Russ. Glad you liked it. :thumbsup:


Thanks Alan. :thumbsup: Smooth enough :)



Thanks Martin. :thumbsup: Yes 10min would be good. Before I do that though I'll need to fix the field and have the AO cranking. Eventually. :)


:lol: :hi:


Thanks Greg. :thumbsup: I never did galaxies but for a widish field on M83. I guess it'll work for it as well yes but I like nebulae most.

[telecasterguru]

Marc,

That is a very nice image. You really have the rig under control.

Frank

[Tom Davis]

I agree--great shot and very close to that "sweet spot"!

Tom

[multiweb]

Thanks Frank. :thumbsup: Getting there. Will hopefully see you tomorrow evening.


Thanks Tom for your comment and most of all for the inspiration you provide with your great work. Big fan here! :thumbsup:

[Hagar]

God help us a Sidonio from M8,,,, Very nice Marc, I upgraded to version2 a while back but it still takes a while to run a big deconvolution.
Getting to the point where I have too many software packages and don't know how to use them all well. I just skip between them for different things that they all probably do quite well.

[multiweb]

Thanks Doug. Yes I've noticed the deconv interface has slightly changed. Haven't tried it on big pictures though. What's good is now it can auto-select stars and you can deconv a selection only. Overall my working flow is now 10x faster with the new version. :)

[Bassnut]

Top pic there Marc. I think your pushing it bit guideing with a finder at that FL, but it seems to have worked well enough. Yes AO will give a big guideing improvement in your case, but mostly because your guiding with a finder now.

And thanks for the CCD stack V2 upgrade heads up, didnt know it was there, installing now, looks good.

[multiweb]

Thanks Fred. :thumbsup: Yeah... well I got a bit lazy guiding with the finder. :lol: That's not bad at 3.5m though hey? I think that throws a spanner in the "guider FL vs. scope FL" argument ;)

[Bassnut]

Yeah, it sure does :) I realised that old argument was dead long ago. In fact its pretty exceptional for 3.5mFL (are you sure thats 3.5m BTW? ;)), even for 3 min subs. I think youd be in trouble longer tho. You seem to have no flex too, mind you a finder wouldnt weigh much :lol:.

I just had a poke at the CCDstack V2 decon filter, wow, what a change, now I dont have to worry about picking a good star anymore :P, it looks awesome, given the CCDstack decon was the coolest tool in the box already :thumbsup:.

[multiweb]

Yep - 0.41asp . Only a couple of cm added to back focus with tubes or others, even a diagonal will get you to F/11 on the SCT in no time.


Yeah it's great hey? They did a great job on that version. Massive improvement. Everything runs faster too.