Well some 18 months after its inception in my mind....I don't know what to say really
...other than I am utterly flabbergasted...I knew this scope was good and that it had a great reputation (hence why I went with it over other scopes) but it is not until you see it with your own eyes and use it for yourself that you finally understand ...
Because I had work the next day, I only went out to test the operation of the whole new rig, to make sure the NJP was going to
handle the massive load for slews and guiding, get the MegaMOAG setup, see if there was any image plane tilt and generally shake down the system...and the whole shebang worked flawlessly first go
all essentially perfect
...so I did a first light image
The NJP handled the almost 100kg total load riding on it, no slipping when doing gotos, the MegaMOAG was easy to setup and the auto guiding was bloody perfect, dithering worked and the Robofocus worked perfectly too, even when the massive imaging end (ProLine16803+CFW-5-7+MegaMOAG and Lodestar) was hanging nearly straight down and scope pointing nearly straight up! No obvious image plane tilt was evident and the focus held stable for the whole 3 hours of imaging this field, with only one small tweak of two button presses near the end...
After sitting idle for 4 years, the big FLI Proline 16803 worked without a hitch, like it had never stopped....
I really have to give the kit and whole setup one of these...
man, was I happy
Then the first frame came down
...and I was totally floored
a massive 4deg X 4deg field full of pin point stars corner to corner..so again, essentially perfect
The only negative was I had no flat field panel....that arrived just today
so the small amount of vignetting could not be flattened out...next time
So Pickle me Grandmother...Happy days
Here is the full res first light image, the small attachment below is only a crop so please open the big file and go for a swim
This is a modest exposure with minimal processing, test image - all capture details are under the image:
SMC and 47Tuc Now with flats (Full frame 100% Full Res image 20meg) please feel free to zoom out in your browser to fit it all on your screen.
The sky is the limit now
Mike