Some dust from Clayton bay

[Peter.M]

Hi guys, I spent last night trying to stay warm at Paul Haese's dark sky. It dropped to 2.4 degrees outside so quick refocuses was all we could manage before we retreated to the house.

I spent 4 hours imaging corona australis and I hope you like it,

luminance at 15 minutes 1x1 binned
RGB at 5 minutes 2x2 binned.

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

Must be lovely to get out under the stars.

Questions. your focus looks really soft. either your collimation was out by a fair bit or your seeing was shot to hell.

to reference off here is my shot from a little bit ago with the same setup minus the extra 50mm of aperature

[Peter.M]

Collimation was being a pain, seeing was far better than any I have imaged under before. I got bobs secondary knobs (previously had bolts) when I got the heater, and I dont think I can tighten them enough with my fingers to hold well enough.

But because I was at Pauls and I didnt want to waste the time I just kept imaging anyway. Might put the bolts back in

[Paul Haese]

Collimation aside this is pretty nice. Heaps of data and quite smooth. colour is good too.

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

Mine are tool less and it holds perfectly well. I really feel that its one of two things

1. you havn't got your spider vanes tight enough, which is causing the secondary to move (I actually used a pair of pliers to tighten them up they are like guitar strings to the point the ota is just dipping in around the silver knobs that hold the vanes to the ota plus the 1.8mm SS vanes and 40mm hub help.

2.The weight of your imaging setup on the scope is causing the the tube to really flex. Now thinking that you where shooting to the east for corona australis that means the weight is acting on the tube length ways, this is the worst orientation for flexing of the ota as it is almost flat at that point. when your pointing towards the north or south it works raidially instead of longnatudinally.

How do you fix this issue curved plate inside the tube. paint it flat black bolt it on happy days.

Tighten the vanes a lot or upsize and make them stronger.

BM

[Peter.M]

I too have my secondary veins tightened with a pair of plyers and they depress the tube where they are gripping on. The first images were taken with the scope almost horizontal, but at the end of the session the scope was almost vertical (worst position for flex).

Im going to spend some time this week ( weather permitting ) with my collimation pants on, we will see how it goes.

[Ross G]

Nice colour and detail Peter.

I really like the composition.

Ross.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne (Justin Tilbrook)]

Hi Peter,

Some great detail in the dust lanes, again interesting to see the comparison with my recent image of TY Cra.

Cheers,

Justin.

[Tom Davis (Tom)]

Excellent dust!

-Tom

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I love this region.

[Peter.M]

Stay away from my image tom, your display picture will ruin it! And thanks JJJ its an interesting region

[Rigel003 (Graeme)]

Just caught up with this Peter. Spectacular image. Must have been worth the frostbite.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Great shot Peter. Subtle colours and very natural processing.