The Eta Season

[[1ponders]]

I suppose its a case of 'cant help myself'. Its the end of summer and its all Eta Carina and NGC3372 for me atm. With the new setup I had to try Eta Carina again after catching half an hours worth a few nights ago.

After a long period of astronomical despair, SE Qld has been lucky enough to catch a few brief moments of clear air over the past couple of weeks. Nothing to really write home about but enough to get out and rotate the worm and gear a few times. It culminated last night with a beautifully clear and reasonably steady night until stumps around 3:00. I managed over 3 1/2 hours all up of image, only to loose a more third due to flexure, slippage and some dodgy focus. The final image was 2 hours of Ha in reasonable seeing and a recollimated scope.

NGC3372: Meade 8" SCT (gps style ota), SXVF-H9 and Astronomik Ha filter. 2 hrs 8 min. (16*8min)

[h0ughy]

another bag of top quality photons Paul

[alan meehan]

Never tire of eta good shot Paul,well done good to see you getting some clear skies
AL

[RobF]

Wonderful shot Paul. The sharpness and detail is so striking, it really draws the eye in. You've got to be happy with that gem.... :thumbsup:

[Dennis]

Lovely image Paul. Sorry to hear about the equipment problems, it must have been frustrating!

Cheers

Dennis

[[1ponders]]

thanks guys, yep I'm reasonably happy with it Rob :D:D:D:D . This long focal length stuff is going to get pretty addictive. Its opened up a whole world of new stuff to shoot :), once the moon and clouds nick off. I've still got a bit to do on collimation as well, but I'm getting the hang of it.

Well you know what its like Dennis, migrating up to that sort of FL. I remember some of the frustrations you had trying to find out where all the movement was coming from. I'll follow in your lead, persistence and perseverance. Moving up from around 600mm is a big jump and all those little things that I once thought,"yep that's good enough" just isn't cutting the mustard these days. All that stuff that has just the minutest amount of play all add up now.

[strongmanmike]

Looks good Paul.

Glad you have been able to get out, any excuse to ogle the new mount huh? ;) :love2:

[[1ponders]]

don't forget a bit of a cuddle as well Mike :love: :D

[jjjnettie]

:lol: He keeps it covered with a blue sheet emblazoned with love hearts. It's more than sad. :screwy:
Beaut image Paul. Looking forward to seeing your next target.

[batema]

Great image Paul. Crystal clear.

Mark

[Leonardo70]

Paul, very nice picture. Many details but also smooth ...

Ciao,
Leo

[strongmanmike]

Ahhh yes, cuuuddles...you should dress your new mount as Kenny Koala...

Of course you could also put some fake hair on it and give it a mobile phone too :D

[[1ponders]]

Annndd???? You point??? :whistle: :lol:



It was a pity you couldn't join us Mark, it was a lovely clear night. I had to turn in by 3 though. I'm soooo out of condition. :)


Thank you Leo, It was challenging to process. With the nebula being so bright it wasn't easy to get good contrast.


sorry Mike but Kenny Koala and his accessory just doesn't do it for me. :D Besides anyone that thinks Warnie is a good bet is a worry. :rofl:

[jjjnettie]

sad...........

[strongmanmike]

Ooooh, that's a bed sheet too! ooh la la ;)

[[1ponders]]

Well my daughter left home ages ago so she doesn't need it anymore, Mike. :D Sorry to be so prosaic. :lol:

[Dennis]

Hi Paul

I think that a lot of my guiding issues were based on my unreasonable expectations that a Tak mount would be perfect out of the box and immune to focal length!:(

My best results at the 2160mm native fl of the Mewlon 180 have been with the SBIG 2000XM with TC237 guide chip. I still haven’t had much success using side by side auto guiding, so I may explore the option of OTA rings and mount the guide scope on the rings.

The Eta Carina shot was a bit of a lucky series of exposures; everything just seemed to work well during that session. I hope the luck continues for the next clear night…whenever that may be… smack bang in the middle of La Nina!:)

Cheers

Dennis

[Bassnut]

Excellent narrowfield there Paul, nice to see and well done.

[gregbradley]

That is extremely sharp and detailed. A wonderful view.

Don't waste your time and money on guide scopes at that focal length.

You either have to use self guiding with SBIG cameras or off axis guiding using QSI or a MOAG from Astrodon or similar.

Flexure will be almost impossible to eliminate.

Greg.

[spearo]

this is nice and detailled and so sharp!
reminds me that I need to check my collimation!
frank

[sheeny]

Always a good subject to look at. Well captured Paul!

Al.

[[1ponders]]

thanks for all the positive comments guys and the advice re flexure. OAG :scared: it nearly drove me mad (some might argue with that :P ) when I first started trying to image so I moved to guidescope. Now that I have guidecameras that can reach low Mag stars maybe its time now to revisit that. For the moment though I'm going to do away with the WO as a SbS guidescope and go for a Stellarvue finder mounted on top using losmandy rings and see how that pans out. If it doesn't work I'll see if I can borrow an OAG and get it to work. Yes it was that traumatic :lol: