Great shot there, I difnt think the UHCS filter would be good for star clusters , but there you go. They work for objets other than red emission line nebulae.
Scott
Scott did you see the bug that Tony Posted. man that 20 Da rules
Ive yet to try the Bug with the 350D, it is a great image thats for sure.
Tony, was that Omega centauri shot taken at full focal length (F10 isnt it) or with a focal reducer? The guiding is incredibly accurate there, the stars at full resolution are perfectly round (and small). The Eq6 is a lovely mount, is it the standard version of the one with upgraded motors etc?
What guiding camera are you using, one of the new webcams and guiding software?
Thanks.
Scott
You can easily improve on that Bug nebula....That was was one of my first shots ever taken with the canon 20DA with 30 second exposures..I also hope to improve on that image now that I can do longer exposures.
On your other question's Scott..
No approx F6....I am using the lumicon Off axis guider permanantly..I found it useless to use as an off axis guider but it has an adjustable 80mm focal reducer that you can adjust it's position too F4, F5.5, F6.5 and obvioulsy removed to be F10...it has much less vignetting then my Meade 6.3 focal reducer...the lumicon work like a peterson eyeopener to enlarge rear cell on the back of the SCT reducing vignetting.
I have the reducer set at around F6 atm but that may be slightly inaccurate.
The position of the focal reducer is actualy set at at F4 but F4 is produced if I extend the camera back another 2"..at the moment I have the camera closer so approx F5.5 to F6.
I have the Losmandy G11 with gemini...I only use the EQ6 for widefield on field trips as with Lostock..otherwise it's packed away at home.
This image was guided with my new ST402me guide camera but I am getting the same results with the toucam and guidemaster which is brilliant...the st402me just enables me to find guidstars much easier with such a high sensativity chip.
Hope that answered the question Scott.
But honestly thie biggest change is the UHC-S filter thanks to you Scott...it has enabled me to image at much longer exposures without being washed out with skyglow....approx 2 to 3 x the exposure length is now possible.
Thanks Tony.
I first discovered the joy of nebula filter imaging when I tried my old 1.25 inch Lumicon Deep sky filter with my 10 inch and was astounded at the difference it made, so then bought the 2 inch UHCS.
I didnt know Sbig had such a guide camera out, I only though that had the horribly expensive STV, but its good they have the ST402me out now. Did you buy it from the SBig dealer here?
My mount doesnt have motorised dec or an autoguider port so its manual guiding for me. If it did, the St402me would go great as the off axis guider setup I have is a joy to use, always locating usable guidestars to visually guide from, so I imagine it would be easy for the guide camera to find usable stars.
I considered the Lumicon easy guider newtonian model, but it sounds like its a good thing I didnt get it. Is it too hard to find usable guide stars with your lumicon easy guider?
How do you find the Eq6 to use? Ive seen Houghys and it looks quite slick, though obviously the Losmandy rules.
Thanks.
Scott
The EQ6 with Skyscan works well.....it never had the GOTO accuarcy like the losmandy but I have done plenty of images that I have been very happy with on the EQ6.
I could not find any guidestars in Brisbane using the Lumicon...useless.
The St402xme is not advertised as a guide camera as it has the same chip as the ST-7 but thier cheaper because they have less cooling...so combining that with a large very sensative chip makes a perfect guide camera...cooling goes down around 20degrees below ambient where the ST-7 is around 30 degrees below....but his type of cooling is not needed when guiding with 2 second exposures..actualy no cooling is needed.
I didn't need a stand alone unit like the ST-4 or deluxes so this was perfect for my situation.
I might takes some 2 second exposures and show you what I see in just 2 seconds.
Eddie Tremarchi is using this guide camera now and he was the one that recommended the camera to me for guiding.
