First 2 image of 2011

[Leonardo70]

Happy new year to all, with some delay :)

The first 2 image of the new year for me:
http://www.starkeeper.it/M82.htm
http://www.starkeeper.it/IC405_RC.htm

Taken with GSO RC 10" reduced to F5.2 and Atik4000 LE Mono from italian Alps.

Thanks for looking.

Ciao,
Leo

[TrevorW]

Very nice Leo well done

[DavidU]

Beautiful images !

[ChrisM]

Impressive Leo! You must be pleased with the GSO. I especially like the Starburst Galaxy.

Chris

[Leonardo70]

Thank so much for your replies ...

Leo

[richardo]

Leo,
These are some of the best images I've seen taken with a GSO 10" scope!
You've certainly got it dialed in to perfection.
It's hard to tell this scope from the hugely priced RC's in similar aperture... the stars and the refraction spikes tell the story!!

Loved your Flaming Neb image.
Very well processed and good saturation in your colours.

Top shelf.

Rich

[Leonardo70]

Rich, i tried to do my best ... fighting with cheap scope, cheap CCD and medium quality sky . I know my picture its so far from the owner of the best RC but i'm happy to go nearly as i can ...

[renormalised]

Nothing wrong with those piccies, Leo. They're superb!!! :)

The gear you have maybe mid range stuff, but the results most certainly are not. In any case, when you don't have megabucks to spend on top of the line equipment, you can only do as good as your equipment and skills level allows. It's pretty obvious from this that those skill levels are very high :)

[mswhin63]

Definitely nothing wrong with those pictures, nice clear and very little noise, well done :thumbsup:

[multiweb]

Really nice! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[suma126]

excellent images.what focal reducer did you use thanks

[Stevec35]

Excellent images! Well done Leo.

Steve

[marco]

Hi Leonardo, both are extremely beautiful images, with M82 being superlative in my opinion. I don't actually believe your results would be any better using a more blazoned ota, I have no information on better pictures of the same targets taken through a 10" :thumbsup:

Keep posting here your images so we can enjoy some of your work!

Clear Skies
Marco

[Leonardo70]

Really happy about your replies ... many thanks to all... in this 2 picture there's a lot of work and passion ...

Dear Suma, The reducer is the CCDT67 from AstroPhysics with dedicated 2" nose AP16T, i choose a 106mm distance that give to me a reduction factor of 0.66x. The flat field are at limit of my sensor, i founded necessary collimation of focuser (not the original) to light axis with a really good laser to achieve the best result in conjuction of takahashi telecollimator. The full illuminated field for 106mm is 28mm circle ... so you cannot use a bigger CCD.

Ciao,
Leo

[alexch]

Loved the images, Leo!
The flaming star nebula has so much depth.

Cheers,
Alex

[spearo]

Lovely shots well done
Que Bella!
frank

[DavidTrap]

Excellent work - you've certainly done your homework on the flattener and paid attention to all the details.

DT

[strongmanmike]

I think your equipment is nothing to sneeze at Mr Da Vinci! :P Looks to be working very well! :-)

Lovey images and well done on getting Ha as well as Lum, this has payed off for sure!

Finally, thankyou for not using too much artificial smoothing, nothing looks worse than over smoothed images, the level of noise in your images is very natural.

Bellisimo :thumbsup:

Mike

[Leonardo70]

Many thanks to all ....

Mike thanks for your comment ... i use a noise (ninja) reduction with 2 different masks in PS but so light ... ccdstack with rejection do a very good job on stacking.

[lebowski]

M82 is superb technically perfect.

[Paul Haese]

Lovely work Leonardo. I really like the galaxy. Such beautiful colours, guiding is lovely and the processing superb. Great stuff.

[Leonardo70]

Thanks Paolo and Paul.

Hey Paul...i look in your web site ... and the RC ?? You forget it ;-)

Ciao,
Leo