Light at the end of the tunnel.

[multiweb]

Not a great picture by any mean but a major confidence boost for me after a series of total failures the past few weeks with my C11 at prime focus. So it feels bloody good to finally stick a tick in the 'win' column after going mad turning in circles asking myself 'why does it do that'. Very frustrating.

I imaged Saturday night in various areas of the sky as to check weight shifts and collimation with the primary and all my frames in CCDIS show the same readings. Collimation is under 2". Then I left it 3h on M16 in 5min subs and went to watch TV. Now I have the primary sorted out and rock solid and I can very easily isolate abberrations induced by the corrector plate offset and the flattener's spacing.

I imaged through the whole AO set although it wasn't on because I didn't figure out how to focus the guider yet :P Might be a day job check. As a result stars are bloated because of guiding errors (through the finder). This is a crop 1:1 reduced 75%. Top of the frame is the edge of the sensor. My whole corrector plate has to come down a bit and I suspect the flattener has to be spaced a bit further too. But as I say it's good to finally going somewhere. :)

[TheAstroGuy]

Marc,

Smooth as silk that shot is, nice work

Regards

Shane

[renormalised]

Good shot, considering the problems:)

[Dennis]

Good work Marc – great to see that you are getting on top of the plethora of variables that can affect imaging at these focal lengths! Once you have controlled the controllable ones, you can then start on the unbounded, hidden ones!:D

Cheers

Dennis

[multiweb]

Thanks guys. :thumbsup:

Thanks Dennis. Yes it's been a long struggle, frustrating at times to say the least. The Hotech ACT helped a lot in understanding more about the scope and was instrumental in moving forward. I only realised yesterday how to differentiate collimation errors from corrector abberations. Because you ned to be collimated 100% to start seeing the other errors. One thing I learnt from all this is not to rely on ones eyes to assess a star test or a field flatness. Your brain will always do the work and compensate to make thing look right. The CCD on the other hand goes by the numbers and doesn't lie. It is a tedious and iterative process though.

[gregbradley]

Not a bad shot. Overcoming equipment problems is definitely a part of this hobby.

I just had my computer fixed only to find now it won't start up CCDsoft.
Just another little challenge. Its good to get some runs on the board.

Greg.

[TrevorW]

Good effort Marc

[CoolhandJo]

Getting up close now! nice one..

[multiweb]

Sure is :thumbsup: - Ha! Computers! Love 'em hate 'em. :P Figured out the SX guider now. Turns out the pickup prism wasn't placed deep enough down the tube. Being a large format AO my adaptors and extension ended up smaller than the entrance pupil of the unit so I got to go closer to the optical axis to get some light until I get an adpator with a bigger diameter at the back of the SCT. The standard Meade has a smallish central hole (under 2") and the AO unit was designed for big sensors and big adaptors. Sorted out now. :)




Thanks for the encouragements guys. I need them :lol: :thumbsup: