Hi again all,
After playing around with my newt trying to track down my slight flexure problem and then recollimating I was keen to give it a go last night..On the weather satelitte image it looked like it might clear later in the evening. So I checked the sky at around 11pm and nearly a full sky of stars.....
Quickly setup and decided on Centaurus A, ngc 5128 for a test..
Seeing was not the best as well as transparancy but I was very eager!!!
Ok image is 10 x 5 min at iso 800, Df removed and processed in PS with a modded canon 300d and 6" f/5.6 newt.
Very happy with the outcome even though the guiding wasn`t the best and maybe focus could be a bit tighter..also it was warm...so lots of noise to remove as well.!!!..
This is when Houghys cooled camera would be fantastic!!!
I didn`t end up with any images with trails only a few oval star frames..so I might have nailed it....but need more tests...
Cheers and CS....
Hi Garyh,
Very nice picture, great detail and colour, with a good dark background it will be hard to improve on, and you are right re the Radio Galaxy bit, I used to have a phase switched interferometer with 2 x 20 foot stressed parabolic antennas, (Radio Astronomy) and Cent.A was always a good source to calibrate ones sensitivity with, It has a flux density of some 2211 Jy. (Janskys) at 600 Mhz. (I used this frequency) and was in the clear at this declanation (no other strong sources nearby) I dont have the interferometer now as there is too much Radio interference around.
Hi Gary
this looks good, and you would have to be happy with it, surely. Star images are as good as you will likely get with average seeing.
What was it that you did to rectify the problem?
Gary
Thanks everyone for the comments!!
I was suprised at how much of the fainter extremities came up with under a hour total exposure. still a touch of noise there..but quiet happy with the image..it was over 20 degrees last night and humid as well.
Garyb..I found that one of my locking bolts to lock collimation on the mirror cell was not actually touching the rear plate behind the mirror. Just a tiny gap enough to allow some sag I guess?, so I tightened up the cell by pulling back the mirror on the springs to remove the gap and all 3 locking bolts now hit up nicely on the plate...
I hope this was the problem? some more longer exposures will tell...fingers crossed ;-)
Cheers everyone
Nice star colours too.
So do you manually guide or autoguide?
thanks
Scott
Scott, I guide the old fashion way by eye and a old meade 12mm reciprical in a 70mm saxon refractor.
Autoguidig would be soo nice but thats a future project...
cheers...
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