NGC2736 Herschels Ray

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Greg, I was wondering how your NJP would take the new tak, looking good. And excellent pic too, different, nice change.

Thanks Fred.

How have you been? Been a bit quiet lately.

Been doing any imaging?

Mike, yes I hope it is!

Greg

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Noticed Sydney weather lately ? , not good for megadata .

I get discauraged sometimes .

[spearo (Frank)]

Stunning, pinprick stars, beautiful nebula
top shot
well done
frank

[multiweb (Marc)]

Nice shot but great processing. I really like the balance between the stars and the nebulosity. Soft colours while keeping all the contrast in the faint and fuzzies. top work.

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Lovely image Greg! You've done it justice with the repro for sure!

BTW, whenever I come to IIS these days I have to wear a bib. I salivate uncontrollably whenever I see your 180. First image soon????!!!!! <sluuurrp>

Cheers, Marcus

[gregbradley]

Hi Marc,

Yes the 180 is a work of art.

I took some test images but not enough to publish anything.

I took some Horsehead in Ha (nearly full moon) using the Microline and it gave an excellent image scale. Even more zoomed in than my RCOS 12.5 inch and more the image scale you see with a largish RCOS.

But the price of course is its fairly dim and even with 4.5 hours it is still too noisy.

I took 2 15 minute subs of M42 and M42 filled the whole image and I was very surprised to see the trap and no blown out core. Must be something to do with the image scale and pixels/arc second. Unfortunately I had accidentally added a delay of 2 seconds to the guiding times so the stars in one weren't round and the other was out of focus!

Next trip for sure will be TEC time. I also have adapters on the way to get correct metal back distances from the flattener.

Mechanically the scope is great. Not really that heavy (about the same as the AP140 and probably much the same as your TOA 150 16.5kgs).

I was happy to see the NJP could handle it and that it was not affected by wind.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Frank and Marc.

I have to watch my heavy handed saturation at times and tone it back so thanks for that as I have worked on that aspect of my processing.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Noticed Sydney weather lately ? , not good for megadata .

I get discauraged sometimes .

Yes I have a dark site and I was going through that. Driving 3.5 hours only to be greeted by cloudy skies or clear skies, get all setup and clouds come in. However the weather pattern seems to have changed (notice bad weather was always in the new moon weekend?) and clear skies back to being the norm there.

I take it your Moorook (spelling?) site is business only? Boy Thomas Davis and John Gleason have been putting out the images of the year from that site with an AP155 and an AP 155 telecompressor and Proline 16803 camera with Baader filters.

Absolutely stunning. Do you get really good seeing and lots of clear nights there?

Greg.

[Octane (Humayun)]

Greg,

That's a work of art. So hard to believe that that is actually up there.

Splendid work.

Regards,
Humayun

[gregbradley]

Thanks very much Humayun I appreciate it.

Greg.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Greg, yeah, no of clear nights at Moorook is good actually, one of the better spots in OZ ;-), as this spread sheet shows (scroll down).

http://www.riverdingo.net.au/data.htm

[gregbradley]

Yes that is good.

I guess with my site it was more the timing of the cloudiness last year.

There seemed to be a pattern where the new moon week would see a front coming across from WA from about June onwards and has only stopped happening about Jan 1.

It seemed to be rainy in Sydney on the new moon weekend, followed by a week of clear weather in the rising moon week then rainy again on the full moon week then clearer in the week after that. Then back to a new front on the new moon week.

Greg.

[Garyh]

Very nice Pencil there Greg!
Beautifully detailed and colored!
10 out of 10 stars there!
cheers

[gregbradley]

Thanks very much Gary.

Greg.