Thanks very much everyone for your feedback.
It's not a change in direction, just a bit of fun when there's no planets up, the sky is dark and/or the seeing is bad

My main focus will still be solar system imaging, but I do want to start taking some DSO images to add to my collection. I'm never going to be great at it but i'll be satisfied if most of my shots turn out like the OC one.
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Originally Posted by avandonk
Welcome to the imaging world of gradients, light pollution, overexposed stars, washed out nebulae, satellites, aircraft lights, young men and their 10KW headlights parked at 3AM just up the road ....
You can only find out by doing!
Very nice start. Trouble is you will never be happy with the result as it is plagued by too many variables.
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You're right - I'm not sure I could stand the frustration of real deepsky stuff. However it's much less affected by the seeing, which is a planetary imagers achilles heel - and there's no need to worry about mirror reaching ambient temperature, collimation, etc.
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Originally Posted by Striker
Wont be long until the DMK is up for sale...lol
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Not a chance
Quote:
Originally Posted by John K
Are you thinking of shooting prime focus soon?
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I don't think so John - at least, not through the 12". I'd need to move the mirror up the tube or play around getting a lower profile focuser. I don't want to reduce my focal length due to planetary imaging.
I'll eventually get an ED80 to put on the EQ6, and do some prime focus imaging then.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ving
not kyour first widefields i believe mike 
nice job tho, they look good
you going to the darkside?
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You're right, i'd done widefields before by putting the camera on the tripod on top of the EQ platform, and they turned out fine however my exposure times were limited and I was only able to do short focal length (wide field) stuff.
These were my first with the camera being tracked on the EQ6, and I could use a much longer lens (300mm with 1.6x crop factor) so it was more than just a widefield.
Thanks again.
I've got a few more to process which i'll get to soon, I hope.