My first shots with the Skywatcher BD 10" Newtonian! Finally!

[Logieberra]

The big girl has been sitting around for a while...

She was purchased used from a fellow IIS member. After tonight – I’m glad that I got her!

But the learning curve has been steep with the Newtonian... Anthony (Bird) was kind enough to help me collimate the secondary with his catseye equipment.



I've also had a few teething problems:

not enough in-focus (solved with Brendan's advice which also saved me from having to cut the poor tube!);
needed an extra 5kg counter weight to balance this on the NEQ6-Pro; and
as recommened by several members - removal of the rubber clips on the primary (for enhanced contrast and no pinching) and secured in place with silicone.
Soooo... enough of that! Here is my first stacked picture. The Lagoon Nebula:


- 3mins x 12 pics
- 3min x 20 darks
- stacked in DSS
- fiddled with (badly) in Photoshop 7.

Whatchathink?

Two different flavours, hard to know what's better really...

Cheers,

Logie

[Alchemy]

The second for me, the first has a color balance issue, it needs the background balanced, probably lower right corner with middle eyedropper in the levels panel. Then bring the bleck point up if it needs it (probably not in this case) then use curves to bring out the midlevel detail ( a quick lift in the middle to start with) then increase the saturation.

See how you go.

If you have trailing stars. Upsize by 200% duplicate layer, set blend to darken and move top layer till stars round up, then merge and downsize back to original scale. You can also do this at 400 % I would not use others as downscaling isn't exact.


Happy imaging
Clive

[troypiggo]

Sweet first light, mate! Gotta be happy with that! What ISO did you use?

Looks like tracking and focus went well. Might have a bit of coma in the corners, MPCC or Paraccor will fix that. Yep, more money. :)

[DavidU]

I would be very happy with that Logan. An MPCC or such will tidy up the edges.

[bmitchell82]

You have done very well Logan,

Its good to see that i have some company on this lonely big newt forum :) here's to the 10" newt brigade! :cheers:

The new vanes will be interesting to see a direct comparison so close together, most of mine where months apart and i have changed my methods heaps. but yours will be almost like a benchmarking test for the upgrade!

Upwards and Onwards:thumbsup:

[Stu Ward]

Both very nice, but the second one looks more natural to me

Stu

[cybereye]

Nice job, Logan. It's a nice feeling when the plan comes together, isn't it?!:)

Cheers,
Mario

[asimov]

Nice first attempt Logan. Looks like the scope is well collimated. Even though you have coma, it is at least uniform.

For 5 min subs, you should have got way more than that though. Try a higher ISO.

[Screwdriverone]

Nice first light Logan,

I agree with John, 300s subs and 12 of them as well as a stack of darks should have brought out more nebulosity.

This looks uncannily similar to the 9 x 30 sec subs at ISO 800 I took on M8 (I have attached mine to this post for comparison). So I think with 5 min subs, there should be MUCH more visible?

See what you think, great start though!!

Cheers

Chris

[rcheshire]

The Newt does a nice job - well done. M8 is becoming a favourite. Lots of features and great to practice processing.

[Logieberra]

Oooops! Meant to say 3 minute exposures! Hahhaa

But check out my post time... 3:31am.

Please excuse my brain fart :)

Thanks for the compliments guys. And happy to have joined the Big Bertha club Brendan. She's a great scope.

- Alchemy, will try those settings, cheers.
- Troy, ISO 800.
- David, will get a Baader MPCC in time to come... expensive buggers...
- Thx Stu and Cyber, it took many steps to finally get to image with this thing... Still have a long way to go...
- John and Chris, will shoot for longer exposures next time. It is crazy how you're 30s subs brought out more detail...
- Asimov, the Catseye equipment is EXCELLENT. Brendan pointed me in the right direction from the start. Sooo glad that I didn't buy the Bintel / Andrews / GSO laser special!
- Thx RC, the lagoon certainly is popular at the moment. Will shoot for something random on Saturday night if the weather holds up.

Buggered after last night's effort. Off to zzzzzz for me. Thx guys.

[Logieberra]

OK, as recommended, I took 10min (600s) exposures of the Lagoon Nebula on Saturday night with the Canberra CASDAK gang.

Here are the single exposures, no stacking, no photoshop, as is.

Indeed, 10min brings out the fluffy stuff on the edges :thumbsup:

[Screwdriverone]

Nice Logan,

Why do the colours change? are they all the same ISO?

Cheers

Chris

[Logieberra]

They're 10mins give or take a few seconds... I use my blackberry to time the shots, and the Nikon IR remote to take them... could also be from flashlights etc when Baz was making us some soup :)

[luigi]

The 2nd one (from first post) for me. I really like how you exposed the photo, only a minor zone of the nebula is blown. Very nice colors! I might crop a little from the borders to emphasize the nebula and reduce the stars that are a little enlarged on those areas.

[batema]

Well done Logan. They look great. Can you let me know how you solved the focus problem without having to cut the tube.

Mark

[Logieberra]

Bateman

It's a simple fix. Brendan saved the day again :)

If you have a Skywatcher (Synta/Orion) Black Diamon OTA - try this.

1. grab the 1.25" adapter;
2. unscrew the top part of the adapter (put it aside);
3. screw your camera T-ring directly onto the bottom part of the 1.25" adapter; and
4. enjoy the extra in-focus with your DSLR!

Hope this helps.

[cybereye]

That fix also worked with my Skywatcher 8" (ex Dob - SW680). Discovering that I could couple the T-adapter directly to the focuser made a world of difference !!!:D

Mario

[bmitchell82]

:) it works as long as you don't have a MPCC.

Soon as you get one :) you need to follow another post :D

Where i fixed the problem of non MPCC focusing for "Manav"

Simple soloution!

By the way You have done a cracking job on the neb, youll have to slip it though PSCS4 or something and bump up the curves and play with levels, showdows n highlights. Theres a whole lot more data in that beast! :) just gotta tickle it out