Well the sky was brilliant, its just a shame that the dew set it very heavily and started to dampen my spirits so to speak..
Anyway, before it got too rough, i managed a few quick shots... Nothing fantastic here, exposures had to be kept short to avoid the full moon from completely washing them out..
Images taken with:
8" F/8 RC
SBIG ST-9E
EQ6 pro
Cent A
8x1min
M8
20x30sec (subs had to be 30 sec, otherwise the stars near the core would bloom big time, and who can be bothered processing that out )
M16 (I've been dying to image this as I missed it last year...)
20x2min
(self guided through 13nm Ha filter)
As I said, they are nothing flash, but hey, First light of the RC went well, Its my first new data since the 28th of Feb, which all in all makes it an enjoyable night...
G'day Alex, glad to see you've finally had a chance to try the RC out.
As you say early days but those images sure look promising mate, as you say with a ful moon overhead too. I hope you get plenty of opportunity to get the best out of that scope in the weeks ahead.
Clive : The secondary collected dew like there was no tomorrow, Im going to have to make a dewshield for it, and if that doesnt work, then im going to work on a way of heating the secondary.. The primary stayed clear as a bell.. By 1am this morning, im sure the neighbors were sick and tired of hearing the hair dryer!
Ashley : Yep... Even the grin on my face when looking at the rig after it was all set up was pretty big! Just looking at it thinking.. Carbon fibre RC telescope with self guided SBIG camera... Joy!!
All the images could definitely do with more exposure, and preferably not imaging through a celestial fish bowl
Dennis : M16 is my favorite too.. Im sure I can improve it with longer subs and more of them... I think I'll move to a 7nm Ha and an external guiding setup as self guiding through the 13nm was a little difficult and troublesom at times..
Clive : The secondary collected dew like there was no tomorrow, Im going to have to make a dewshield for it, and if that doesnt work, then im going to work on a way of heating the secondary.. The primary stayed clear as a bell.. By 1am this morning, im sure the neighbors were sick and tired of hearing the hair dryer!
Ashley : Yep... Even the grin on my face when looking at the rig after it was all set up was pretty big! Just looking at it thinking.. Carbon fibre RC telescope with self guided SBIG camera... Joy!!
All the images could definitely do with more exposure, and preferably not imaging through a celestial fish bowl
Dennis : M16 is my favorite too.. Im sure I can improve it with longer subs and more of them... I think I'll move to a 7nm Ha and an external guiding setup as self guiding through the 13nm was a little difficult and troublesom at times..
Alex.
" im sure the neighbors were sick and tired of hearing the hair dryer! "
So you got the hair dryer out ay Alex ... looks like you had fun ... I'm surprised at the shortness of your subs ... you culd have got a lot more out of your setup with several minute subs at least ... there's always next time.
Steve: The subs were kept short due to the moon, as for the M16 subs being only two minutes, that was to avoid blooming on the stars.. The ST9E is VERY sensitive in that respect.. Not withstanding the scope being F/8, i could clearly make out the pillars in a 3 second sub.. could easily make out the dust lane in Cent A in 1sec... Its QE is the 2nd highest of all the SBIG ST series cameras, and due to it being NABG, it very quickly blooms on brighter stars... I think with a 3~7nm filter it will be much better, however I think that would require external guiding in order to get 5~10 minute subs...
I forgot to mention, I had the sbig @ -10c for the images.. used auto darks, no bias/flats used..
Michael : Hah... Nope, I had a 1kg g-clamp clamped to the front of the dovetail.. It worked, but wasnt perfect as it was heavier on one side than on the other, which when pointed up in the east, would pull the declination axis towards the north a bit... However I think I probably could have pushed the M16 subs out to 5 mins... I really want a narrower Ha filter to blot out the stars and stop blooming all together!
JJJ, I was happy to see it mounted up and imaging myself.. Its been far too long!
Doug : I think this one will last me! Got a few new bits and bobs i need for it, a motorised feathertouch is on the way which will make it that little bit nicer! Need an external guiding setup though... Guiding through Ha filters is flakey at best...
I did not see any dewing up on the secondary on my first run. It was certainly a dewy night, might have to investigate making a dew shield myself.
Are you still using the same focusor? I had assumed you were. M16 is probably the best in this lot. Perhaps the sharpest of the lot. I found focusing this beast was a little hard and I will be getting a bahtinov mask made up for it.
Paul: It still has the GSO focuser on it, and CCD inspector says there is tilt involved... I preformed an eyeball collimation on hadar before imaging.. It looked good, but CCD inspector tells me its about 3.7" off or there abouts.. So still plenty of room for improvement in this department... Curvature of 12.9%...
I agree, M16 is by far the best of the three images, but by no means a "Great" image.
Focusing was difficult but I got by after quite a bit of messing around...
) 
... looks like you had fun ... I'm surprised at the shortness of your subs ... you culd have got a lot more out of your setup with several minute subs at least ... there's always next time.
