Another from the files recently, this time I was mucking around with my 2.5x barlow to see if I could get any closer to the Eskimo Nebula and grab any more details and a larger image scale.
Only 25 mins and the barlow wasnt an ED or anything, but it seems to have come out OK?
The stars were pretty horrid so I dodgied them up a bit to make them more acceptable.
A bit of an experiment and a bit of fun as I was struggling with my guiding at the time, so I though, why not?
Thanks for looking, criticisms expected on this one,
The nebula itself isn't too bad especially for only 25 minutes, and the guiding seems quite good - it's always fun to try something different. I tried a barlow on a small globular cluster once - the result was terrible - definitely a non-keeper.
I suspect with DSOs that a barlow also magnifies the imperfections and it is actually better to just double the image size? They are good for the moon and planets though.
I tried this for some sh*ts and giggles simply cause at the native scale it really was just a bright blue blob and with some high clouds around I wasnt going to be getting any long runs happening with any nice results.
If I had a higher resolution camera (the Atik is only a 1.4MP) then I could try binning the final image to make it bigger, but alas, this doesnt work that well with my scope/camera combo. With a native 1.33 arcsecs/pixel, this pushed it down to 0.53 arcsecs/pixel which was expecting a bit much considering the seeing at the time.
I may have a bash at the 5x powermate one of these days on something a little larger or even this one and see what comes out the other end.
Very nice result Chris. Definitely try the 5x Powermate also, at long focal lengths the optical quality becomes evident. It's a few years ago now but I used to image planets with a 3x Meade barlow and got so-so results, then I switched to the 5x Powermate and my images instantly improved.
I will definitely give the 5x a try, I will have to make sure I have the target centred well, at 5m focal length it wont be too easy to find something if it is not spot on.....focusing will be difficult too, even with the FCUSB and the electric focuser.
The furry hoodie is quite evident 
