First light

[thegableguy (Chris)]

While it's been bucketing down in Sydney, I've been busy.

I stripped down my NEQ6 (that I bought secondhand about 3-4 months ago). Gave it a thorough clean & re-grease. I was terrified I'd do something wrong and costly, but it's working much better now. Lovely and smooth, slews much quieter than before, and whatever it was that ruined every sub at 7-8 minutes is now gone. Hooray!

I also picked up an elderly 8" f/5 Newt (the old blue tube model Skywatcher) and took it completely apart. Removed and washed both mirrors, dis- and re-assembled the focuser, full collimation.

Lastly, I bought a new GSO coma corrector. What a pain in the bum fitting that thing turned out to be. Had to take a grinder to parts of the focuser to get it to fit.

Anyway! Delighted to show the first image I took with it. It's fairly rough but I'm pretty happy with it nonetheless; there were many opportunities for hamfisted me to ruin things beyond repair yet I somehow managed not to.

Next purchase will clearly have to be a guider because there's only so much I can do without.

30 x 40 seconds (unguided)
Nikon D600, ISO 1600
Lights only - no darks, flats or bias
Stacked in Registax, edited in Lightroom

[raymo]

Damned good start Chris, but seeing as all the stars in the left 30% or so
of the image are elongated 7pm to 1am, it looks to me that your camera is not perpendicular to the light path, possibly something to do with the
aforementioned filing of the focuser, or maybe the CC is somehow not
not square to the light path.
raymo

[thegableguy (Chris)]

Ah!! That makes sense. I was wondering about that; not knowing anything about this stuff I thought it looked like field rotation and wondered how that was possible.

Easily fixed. Well... not easily, but definitely fixable. I thought I had it straight in the focuser but my dodgy near-enough job is too dodgy it seems.

Thanks for that Raymo, much appreciated.

[thegableguy (Chris)]

Here's another I took tonight using a different camera (crop sensor). For some reason Registax created a hideous, almost entirely green image; the curves were really difficult to tame. The first (Lagoon) image barely needed touching, just a little extra saturation, but this one was a total shambles for some reason.

Again no flats darks bias, just lights. Same process as the other one. Just wanted to see how both cameras performed and whether it's possible to shoot unguided at this focal length. Think 40 seconds is towards the upper limit; might be able to manage 1 minute.

[raymo]

The problem is still there,[although seemingly a bit less pronounced], so it
looks like the problem is between the camera and the scope.
raymo

[Somnium (Aidan)]

Fantastic !

[Cimitar (Evan)]

Originally Posted by thegableguy

...and whether it's possible to shoot unguided at this focal length. Think 40 seconds is towards the upper limit; might be able to manage 1 minute.

Hi Chris, I think these 2 pics look great!
What's the focal length of your new scope? I remember you saying the ED80 left you wanting more

Cheers, Evan

[DavidU (Dave)]

An excellent effort Chris.