[naskies (Dave)]

Originally Posted by stevous67

Lots of things can happen, or go wrong in an hour sub, even with AO running, so top effort with a nice result.

Steve

Thanks Steve!

Originally Posted by glenc

Thanks Dave, a great image of one of my favourite nebula.

Thanks Glen! I came across a few of your posts on here while trawling the archives for reference images. I think I've accidentally stumbled across it through the eyepiece while hunting for the Tarantula and going "whoa".

Originally Posted by Ross G

Great looking closeup photo Dave.

Smooth and sharp.

60 minute exposures....wow!

Ross.

Cheers Ross! A bit of a tough target at Brisbane's latitude and early in the season - the Ha subs were taken between 20 and 45 deg altitude. I tried for some RGB stars but they were a mess, so I'll wait until it's near the meridian over summer.

Originally Posted by tilbrook@rbe.ne

Impressive Dave!

It's got that 3D look to it.
60 minute subs!! You must have that mount humming.

Cheers,

Justin.

Thanks Justin! I actually "upgraded" to Greg Bock's former mount, and run far less weight on it than he did so I actually get pretty good stars at 1625 mm focal length even without AO. My original EQ6 (which I still have) is so bad that it needs AO at > 5 Hz to do the same

Originally Posted by pluto

Nice
Great to see also as I'm thinking the STT-8300+AO and RC8 might be my next major purchase and I'm glad that I shouldn't have to upgrade from my EQ6.

Yes, that set up would be capable of excellent results. Note that I only use 2x2 binning now because of the long focal length (including for the 60 min NB subs) - 1x1 is just too insensitive (slow), but it's good to have the option there for tiny planetaries.

I'd also recommend getting a quality refractor around 300 - 600 mm focal length for larger nebulae (Triffid + Lagoon, Orion + Running Man, Horsehead + Flame, etc).