Ngc6744

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

Taken over the weekend at Wiruna. This is quite faint, although it's a reasonable size, so it's quite a difficult object.

Details: 110mm refractor, Canon 350D (no mod),6 x 10min lights, darks.
Autoguided with PHD.
Geoff

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Nice Geoff

A few other faint fuzzies in there as well.

Have you thought about getting one of the WO focal reducers and field flatteners? They work an absolute treat on those pesky stretched outer edge stars

[Dennis]

That's a real beauty - one of my favourite face-on spirals. I have found this galaxy to be quite faint, even with a cooled SBIG ST7 CCD camera, so I reckon you have done a terrific job to capture this one so nicely.

I love the dual bonus of the detail in the galaxy, as well as the wide field setting.

Cheers

Dennis

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

Nice Geoff



Have you thought about getting one of the WO focal reducers and field flatteners? They work an absolute treat on those pesky stretched outer edge stars

I have just got one, but haven't tried it yet. Actually, I think the elongated stars here are autoguiding problems. I think something must have been loose, because the image has drifted over the course of the one hour total exposure. This shouldn't happen (and usually doesn't).
Geoff

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Do you mean that each image is slightly offset from the next one? If so I think I worked out what was causing that with my setup.

It was a combination of not be accurately enough polar aligned and choosing a guidestar away from the object being imaged. I've noticed lately that when I setup for the night and I don't check polar alignment with a quick drift and rely on the circles drawn on the concrete than I am almost guaranteed to get shifting between individual images. The offset guidestar just seemed to make the image jump larger.

However that didn't produce those long stars in the corners, that was simply field curvature and the WO FR dealt with that beautifully.

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

Do you mean that each image is slightly offset from the next one? If so I think I worked out what was causing that with my setup.

It was a combination of not be accurately enough polar aligned and choosing a guidestar away from the object being imaged. I've noticed lately that when I setup for the night and I don't check polar alignment with a quick drift and rely on the circles drawn on the concrete than I am almost guaranteed to get shifting between individual images. The offset guidestar just seemed to make the image jump larger.

However that didn't produce those long stars in the corners, that was simply field curvature and the WO FR dealt with that beautifully.

Yes, I can see that poor PA and an offset guide star will cause this effect. I'll check everything out more carefully next time.
Geoff

[Tamtarn]

Nice image, really like the field of view with faint fuzzies in the background.