Prawned...

[bmitchell82]

I got prawned.
Still fine tuning the EQ6, but i think i have made headway in that dept after helping a friend with his. only a clear evening will let me know if I am on a winner. With the images below there is loads of work to be done on them still, but for now they will stay as they are until i have the mount tracking round stars at 10 and 15 min intervals. :)

In any case here it is un photo bucketed!

6 x 10 min iso 800 flats darks ha filter
http://www.brendanmitchell.net/Project%20254/Prawned.jpg

also my M 16 shot un bucketed.!

http://www.brendanmitchell.net/Project%20254/Eagle.jpg

and M 17 11 x 10 min ISO 800 Flats Darks Ha filter

http://www.brendanmitchell.net/Project%20254/Swan.jpg

and Sculptor 6x 15min ISO 800 Flats Darks Ha filter

http://www.brendanmitchell.net/Project%20254/Sculptor.jpg

the equipment
http://www.brendanmitchell.net/Project%20254/254side.jpg
http://www.brendanmitchell.net/Project%20254/SCPtrees.jpg

[Martin Pugh]

Hey Brendan

that is fine DSLR work indeed, keep at it - do you plan to go unguided for 10 or 15 minute exposures? That's a pretty tall order!

kit looks great though.

cheers
Martin

[Moon]

Brendan,
I'm glad you are finally un-bucketed - I can check out your images from work as well as home. The web site is nice and fast too!
Too bad about those trees ;-(
James

[bmitchell82]

Thanks James, yes its a great feeling being un bucketed that was the motivation to move to my own website and yep it is speedy.

Martin

Thank you for the complement it does means a lot and gives me inspiration. Oh how you make me laugh, i have been polishing this EQ6 7urd for ages and i know there isn't a hope in hell of getting past 2 min with really nice round stars. Mine is guided and PEC'ed from one end to the other :).

It does look weird having such a large weight sitting on such a tiny mount, i have close to 24kgs sitting on the CW bar alone! ah well. :) push on i says

[multiweb]

Great Ha shots. Very sharp details. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Yeh, they're comin along ok huh?

Your outfit looks very nice and while those trees look anoying :rolleyes:..that sky looks pretty sexy :P

Mike

[bmitchell82]

Thanks marc, focusing became so easy with the 10:1 FT focuser its not funny :) so im going to go and add pc controlled focusing to get it even better :) hahaha. But the one thing that i still think about is that i have RA drift, and that is loosing the amount of details that i can capture. soon as thats gone! w00t hopefully itll get nicer again.

Yep mike, they are coming along nicely some upgrades and the fact that you told me that i was experiencing ASTIGMATISM.... made for all the difference!
Those bloody trees... they are my bain they sit right over the SCP so i cannot use the polar scope its all down to drift alignment ahh well.:thumbsup:

[RobF]

Great shots Brendan, particularly the M16 Ha - love that. Your gear looking very professional :thumbsup:
Thanks for the update - glad someone can see sky!

[bmitchell82]

No problems rob. i just love it that a budget 10" mirror running on a budget mount can produce such details. I hope it gives hope to others that you don't need 30k of gear to get a decent shot off :) although it helps hehehe.

[richardo]

Hi Brenden,
all happening and good when things come together with home contrived gear!
Your set up looks pretty darn sexy all in white..

I would next be looking for flexure... oh yes, the fun of it all!
If your auto guiding is under .5 error then this be the next place to check..

What is your tube made from... rolled steel or aluminium?? How thick??
Substantial do you think??
Is there flex/ sagging or slight movement in the tube where the focuser is attached? Things to check for this is orientation of imaging train in correlation to image orientation and star elongation.
How about the focuser on the ED80... the stock focusers are crap...if there's any slight movement here, mucho problemos!
The scope rings where your ED is attached could be another weak spot.
I've had far better success with a faster guide scope than using the ED.
Most of the time with longer focal length guiders, it will chase poor to average seeing.
You could always try what many are using these days... 9x50 finder. Seems to work well for many folk. Plus would cut down an immense amount of weight on your mount!

Maybe there is some slippage with your clutch system due to pushing your mounts capacity.....

Flexure is truly a bain of us newtonian users. To track down any slight movement anywhere can be a whole new can of worms, and the cause of hair loss, greying and frequent emotional outbursts:mad2::sadeyes::(:rolleyes ::confused2:


Look forward to your further advancements.

Rich

[troypiggo]

Good stuff. When I can get out, I'll be testing out my 10" for this sort of stuff, and some Ha to boot. Will definitely be using your stuff as a benchmark, coz it all looks good! :)

[DavidU]

Nice stuff Brendan. Looks like you need a chain saw.:D:P

[danielsun]

Images are coming along nicely though you might want to get a chain saw onto them trees.:D ;)

Cheers Daniel.

[danielsun]

Just beat Beat me on the chain saw Dave.:lol:

[Moon]

Brendan
I agree with Rich. Because the elongation looks worse in the 15min subs compared to the 10 mins subs I would be looking for flexure.
Why don't you try putting a dovetail plate on the top of the scope and then you can add one more tube ring to the guide scope - but this time really close to (or around) the guide camera. I did this and it made a 1000% improvement.
As a test, next time when you have PHD running, try pushing the guide camera with your finger a bit and see how much movement there is.
James

[bmitchell82]

Richardo, the tube is solid skywatcher varient and weighs a ton.! If there is flexure in that set up ill be a monkeys uncle. I have gone already to great lengths to make sure it isn't a issue, and as such i have already machined a losmandy D saddle style head replacemnt, the dovetail for the actual newt is 25mm thick and the rings are steel :D. The guide rings are ADM and are bolted to the scope rings, and i would assume with only a DSI 2 hanging off the mount it should be fine as the DSLR hangs off it and keeps perfect focus (i also lock focus once i have it and refocus during the evening). Presently that racks in at 25kgs with everything as is :S. I even went as far as to change the Primary mirror cell to a Orion Optics 9 point floating mirror support and I machined a new secondary mirror arrangement from billet aluminium and stainless steel I know that thing doesn't move :D.

Im pretty sure that my issues are mount related as im still tuning it after pulling the mount to bits for a service.
I also machine up for people those adaptors for the finder guiders and alot of other things too :) I do have one but find that unless my polar alignment is right on the money (those blasted trees) then the finder guider doesn't work too well.

Oh and yes :D i do like the look of it all in white and the "metallic" blue feet :D





Im no where near benchmark yet troy! though thankyou for the compliment :)





Dan and David.... i keep threatening to sabotage the trees... problem is there is a dirty great big German Shepard in that yard and he doesn't like anybody :(



I utilize maximdl as PHD i find is very sub standard, when i push the scope with my finger theres plently of movement as you might expect for a overloaded mount :).

Maxim has a great feature that you input your guide and imaging scope, and it will tell you in arc seconds how big the guiding errors are, when i was taking my Prawn shot, i was actively tuning the mount but i learnt that i can tell what the seeing is like though the guide movements. and as such i was sitting at about .5 - .8 seconds of arc adjustments but it started going furry again after about 20 minutes and i had touched nothing, on inspection of the sky there was a lot of sinterlation.

I think before i can start evaluating if my equipment has flexure and give it a quantitive figure my mount has to be running dead smooth. other wise your chasing a horse that never going to come home. and you will get grey hair real quick. :) one thing at a time.

I think just in terms of clarity the 10" has come a very long way, as i am achieving a FWHM of 3 where i used to get 5-7. I can attribute this to increased accuracy of the Cats eye collimation equipment+New secondary setup+stable primary cell.

Thank you all though for your comments it makes me want to go out and hit it again to try and squeeze every last bit of lemon juice out of the lemon :):lol:

[luigi]

Very nice shots I like Sculptor clear focus, well defined, very nice!

[Alchemy]

Hi Brendan

Nice shots, the Ha gives nice crisp details.

The trailing stars WILL be due at least in part to tube flexure, I had a 12 inch newt on a g11 , and that's where the problem lies. The tube is not strong enough to hold e weight of the dslr , remember we are on
Y talking micron movement here.

The detail you have is enough at 10 mins just get more subs and stretch if required.

Not to put a downer on the scope as it will give superb bang for the buck, I decided to put a strengthener plate arou d the focused , this helped but I was too fussy and gave up on it and sold it. I put a 5 inch apo on the g11 and it won't shift a pixel in hours now.

Another way to fix it would be off axis guiding or like the sbig cameras..... Inbuilt so that tube flexure is not an issue.

Clive

[bmitchell82]

Thanks once again for the comments.

Clive,

no doubt there might be a little bit of flexure there, but im not confident with the mount yet to rule that part out and whats a few micron of flex when your talking big movements in guide errors? :D. Im just working though things one piece at a time for now as my uni budget is tight.

Luigi,

Thanks mate, i always thought sculptor was boring but its actually a barred spiral galaxy :) cant wait to get everything running smooth!

Hopefully this weekend it clears up and that way i might be able to get some colour data for the shots i have taken now! :) time will tell

[Vanda]

Great results. The EQ6 is borderline for a 10" reflectors weight - no? You have wind on the tube etc to contend with. Maybe the weight you have added - though it may slightly stress the system - is also a factor in stabilisation. Weight would be in effect an inertia damper. I have a 10" DOB and 120 APO Black diamond refractor on a manual EQ5 - for me the astrophotography cheapest option would be to motorize the mount and go with the refractor. The best option? - what ya reckon?

[bmitchell82]

Hey mate, thanks for having a bo peep at my images.

I believe that my mount is over loaded, not on the boarder but it is overloaded. In saying that the mount is over engineered too but the issue comes from the actual motors not being able to hold the weightings, and the machining errors inherent in the mount itself, make life very difficult.

For what it would cost to get guiding in your mount, it will be cheaper to sell it on and either go for a HEQ5 or NEQ6-w. Sure you can try with the other stuff but eventually you are going to turf what you have purchased and upgrade in any case!

Its up to you. If it where me, i would be saving and just skipping a few levels to either a G11, EM200 level of mount. Yes more expensive but then, how expensive is your time when you get that elusive astro evening when the stars are shining and the Minister of war and finance has granted you sky leave? especially in perth! :)

The only reason why i haven't already upgraded to a titan/EM400 level of mount is because i am a uni student, funds are rare :D

hope that helps