Lagoon, Omega Cent and others

[midnight]

Well our run of cloudy nights has continued and there have been the odd exception so it's good to get out whenever possible.

I finally had a chance to put the modified 40D to use which I bought off Paul Haese and this little monster packs a punch compared to my other 40D.

I did find though a very large difference with the modified 40D between a white balance of sunlight compared to a custom WB where I photo'ed a white card. I am wondering if this is going to make a large difference or not. My experience here is very limited and this 40D is great learning tool.

1st image is simply a test with my 200mm F2.8 lense stopped to F4. Only a stack of 5, ISO800 and 240seconds each. 10 darks only.

2nd image is another test run with my 8"SN. The 40D is quite heavy and my OTA has the original rack and pinion so focusing is very difficult. Need to really upgrade this so the image is not the best. Stack of 8 x 60sec with 10 x darks. Omega Cent was quite low too.

3rd is the ever popular lagoon. Again really only a test run as I rarely use the 8"SN to image from. 5 x 300s ISO800 + 5 darks.

Now I understand the importance of a good focuser on my main scope.

Also having troubles with a strong magenta hue around the stars.

Any advice/comments would be most welcome.

Thanks for looking.

Darrin...

[leon]

Darrin quite good images mate, but i can see what you mean with the Magenta in your images.

Dont know if you use Image Plus to process, but if you do you can open your image in Image Plus, click on color on the top tool bar, and then click on Saturation and Brightness, a window will open with Mag, Y, B, etc, click on Mag and drag the slider to the minus side to about 800, or what ever you like, you will see a great difference.

Leon

[multiweb]

Looks good Darrin. Nice image scale. :thumbsup: My fav would be M8. No surprise there. :) You've got great colors in it.

[midnight]

Thanks Marc. I haven't really imaged at this FL much as I just could not get an image that even hinted of being tracked properly. I think I still have a whole new raft of issues such as flex and a T ring/camera combo that currently relies on two undies (:screwy:) tied to secure it without the rack/pinion sinking back into the OTA. Hmmm.



Thanks Leon. I'll give this a go as your concept seems to apply not only to ImagePlus but possibly PS and Gimp. Most of my work at the moment is getting the primary image as good as I can before processing.

Cheers,
Darrin...

[Osirisra]

Very nice indeedy :)

[Ross G]

Hi Darrin,


Three very good photos.

Good luck with the focuser.

I also have an 8" F4 Vixen Newtonian that spends most of its time in the garage because of various issues that I suspect are all related to the focuser,


Ross.

[midnight]

Thanks very much Ken!



Ross, my 8" OTA is promising and I did another Lagoon which was much longer but I was very disappointed with the result due to my very ordinary factory focuser. I am strongly considering a moonlite focuser. 2 magic nights which have been rare here in WA at the moment wasted because of this. More $$ here we come. But I luv the challenge and what may lie afterwards.

Cheers,
Darrin...