By late last year I was starting to get to the end of my tether with the various problems and frustrations with my newtonian imaging setup.
Issues with stable collimation (despite using catseye gear), camera tilt and focuser slop, residual coma in the corners, insufficient focuser travel (seriously - who designs an "imaging-newtonian" where the focuser doesn't travel OUT far enough, and you need to use an extension tube to reach focus
), undersized secondary, and focus shift during imaging were all driving me up the wall.
Despite my equipment woes I was determined to capture an image of SN2012fr in NGC1365. Data for this image showing part of the Fornax Cluster were collected on 12 Nov 2012. When I reviewed the collected data at the time I realised that focus, collimation and guiding problems meant that most of the subs were ruined. I gave up in disgust, didn't bother to process any of the data, and decided then and there to look at getting a new scope (hence my new VC200L).
Fast-forward 5 months, and inspired by Justin Tilbrook's impressive and prolific collection of images in his first year of astroimaging (see
here) , my competitive side
prompted me to go back and see if there was anything I could salvage from that night to bump up my image tally
.
And sure enough there was! What I have here is 39 x 4min subs at ISO400 with a modded Canon 400D and a GSO 200mm f4 newtonian. Processed in Pixinsight.
Hi-res full size image is
here. Wikipedia tells me that this cluster contains more than 50 galaxies. Despite my humble DSLR I am amazed by how many I can see in the full frame hi-res version. How many can you spot?
Anyway thanks for stopping by. Apologies for the long essay. As always critique is welcome and encouraged.
