Ten Chain Trio

[Tandum]

Last night at 10 Chain Hill started out with a few burn offs going on around the area but by dusk the smoke had cleared and the stars came out. It stayed crystal clear till around 2:30 when scattered clouds started appearing from the east.

My gear basically ran on autopilot most of the night as we all had a play with pmrid's new titan mount with a C14 on top. Once we got his mount pretty close to dialed in, peter plugged in the hyperstar and QHY8 which makes it an F2 14" light sucking monster. I could not believe how fast it slewed the scope and the 4 massive counter weights around. Something like 800x I believe. Good idea to stand back while it's slewing :)

Here's what I got from the night, all shot with the TAK FS60CB :

Conona Australis: 1hour each RGB (10min subs) binned 1x1.
SMC: 1hour Lum(10min subs) binned 1x1, 15minutes each RGB(5min sub) binned 2x2.
M45: 15minutes each RGB(5min sub) binned 2x2.

Clouds cut imaging on the SMC short and the last couple of REDs are dodgy due to high cloud. The 1x1 Lum from M45 was also lost due to cloud. And once again, FLATS didn't work at all :(

[peter_4059]

You'd have to be happy with those Robin. I especialy like the M45.

[ozstronomer]

Robin,

Corona Australis and the SMC look great! SMC is starting to show signs of some red nebulosity scattered through out.

The M45 shot is showing promise....shame the clouds rolled in to spoil the night. :(, at least we had excellent skies for 8 hours :)

Seeing that 14C with 36odd KG of counterbalance wizzing around was certainly a highlight...doesn't it motor along when it slews :eyepop:

[strongmanmike]

Three excellent results for a single night and well planned ie CorAust first then SMC and finally M45 to finish the evening huh?

Mike

[pmrid]

Corona Australis - lovely mate. Just lovely.
Peter

[Tandum]

I'm pretty lucky that one looks ok pete. It's all 2x2 binned so about 6"/pixel :) I only have 1 usable 1x1 Lum which isn't enough :(


In hind sight geoff, I should have stayed on the SMC and waited for the clouds to clear there, and they did. There's really only 1.5 red subs in it :)


Sorry Mike, I wasn't that organised. I was really after CorAust then went looking for something big enough to fill the scope :) M45 was a desperate attempt to keep shooting after clouds covered the SMC :) It also went behind cloud around 4:00 :(


It could have been framed better pete. It runs off the image there and I cropped the right off to balance it up. There seems to be more of it when looking from your place than my back yard :lol: A bigger scope and camera would be nice too :)

[spearo]

Lovely
M45 especially
frank

[Tandum]

Cheers frank, not bad for what's basically a finder scope :D
I've never had such a big FOV to play with before and I'm enjoying every hour of it :)

[Tom Davis]

All are pretty!

Tom

[Omaroo]

Top stuff Robin. Go the Tak 60! M45 is my fave, but the other two show plenty of scope. (:lol:)

[John Hothersall]

These small scopes produce awesome results as you've shown.

John.

[Alchemy]

Corona wins for me, you have got the dust to stand out from the background, and although you are limited by 200kb it looks super crisp, so the full size image must show plenty of detail.

[peter andre]

Very nice Robin, love all three images; M45 stands out most!
I sold my FS60-CB last year to fund the FS-102, but I might get another one.
cheers
Peter
p.s. got my new baby QHY 8pro, i am trying to work out how it works as we speak!

[Tandum]

Cheers guys. Looks like rain, rain and more rain up here for a week or so. As long as it clears for Barambah at the end of the month. That gives me 3 nights to try out my other scopes for a change :)
Peter, if you need help getting it to go, drop me a pm.