Something to aspire to...

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Something to aspire to...?

[multiweb (Marc)]

It does look great hey?

[renormalised (Carl)]

Pretty good shot, but this is a standard to aspire to...

http://www.imagingdeepsky.com/

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

yep that is something to aspire to.

make sure you have your 30k to aspire to it!

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by bmitchell82

yep that is something to aspire to.

make sure you have your 30k to aspire to it!

That'd barely cover the scope, let alone all the bits and pieces!!!

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Pretty good shot, but this is a standard to aspire to...

Yep! No argument there... ...start saving! So I guess the other is the budget version?

[shelltree (Shelley)]

Haha who needs to buy a house? I'll just live in the shadow of my 50k worth of equipment! Those are some amazing shots though, I certainly aspire to that in the distant future.

[renormalised (Carl)]

An ion milled mirrored RCOS 20" will set you back US$59730. Now, after adding the cost of all the bits and pieces to this, you'd be looking at $80000-$90000, at least

The price of two rooms of an average house

[shelltree (Shelley)]

I guess we had better only get a one bedroom house then...

[renormalised (Carl)]

Could always live in a shed

[shelltree (Shelley)]

Touche On a nice big block of land out in the middle of nowhere. Sounds perfect! Now all I need is a vegie patch and I'll be set

[higginsdj]

Not to put a downer on peoples aspirations but seriously, 99.999% of people are not ever going to get the equipment required to achieve these types of images... So what are you actually aspiring to/for?

I say make better use of your time and the equipment you actually have and aspire to achieve some actual tangible results! Do some science based imaging instead!

Cheers

[renormalised (Carl)]

What's not to dream, hey Dave

If they're lucky enough, maybe one day someone here will be fortunate enough to get a scope and setup to do just that....take spicky images and do the science as well

[higginsdj]

Hey everyone knows I'm biased (if you don't know then I'm telling you now - I'm biased), taking pretty pictures is a waste of good observing conditions.

[Alchemy (Clive)]

Originally Posted by higginsdj

Hey everyone knows I'm biased (if you don't know then I'm telling you now - I'm biased), taking pretty pictures is a waste of good observing conditions.

No not so, you can setup your gear, image, whilst the gear is working sit back admire the beauty of the sky. Then later ..... When it's raining, still appreciate the wonders of that you have imaged.

The images that the pic takers produce, inspire others to have a look,

[RobF (Rob)]

Beautiful pic, but as for aspirations I'm going to stick my neck out and say its quite possible to achieve 90% of the quality of that pic with 10% of the expense.

Sure its a huge help having great gear, but just go back through this forum's deep space threads for Eta and you'll be pleasantly surprised what many people have done with refractors 4" and under and reflectors 10" and under on chinese equatorial mounts.

Like most things though, once you master the basics and want to go all out, then getting that last 10-20% performance REALLY costs. There's just so much fun beginners can have though with under $5000 of gear.

Oops - rant over. Really is a fantastic pic...

[higginsdj]

I think you missed my point, if it's clear enough for pretty pictures then conditions are fine for scientific pursuits instead. I've got tens of thousands of images yet to be mined for additional scientific data - more than enough for all those cloudy nights!

But what benefit is there in admiring an old image? What have you or will you learn? Don't get me wrong, everyones entitled to their own pursuits - I'm just expressing my own biased point of view

Cheers

[RobF (Rob)]

That's more than fair enough David - and admirable you enjoy doing real science while the rest of us have fun messing about with whatever

My comments were really directed more at Rowland's original post though - really just trying to point out to beginners and advanced imagers alike that great results (err, pretty pictures ) are definitely possible and within reach....

We're indeed lucky to have a hobby with so many twisting turning avenues to explore