First light - 10" F4 newtonian

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Having seen a scope I knew well pop up on Ice trades this week, I had to do a bit of wrangling with the minister for finance and I lashed out and bought the 10" F4 CF tube newtonian. Geoff was kind enough to drop past on his way back from the ASV dark sky site and hand over the beast yesterday, so after a mad scramble in the afternoon to set up cables, and a bit of work during the early evening to get the new gear set up in Voyager I managed to get 13 X 300 second subs on Centaurus A in the two sucker holes we got here last night.

Shot with the 10" F4 and my old (Now to be sold) ASI294MC Pro camera, I am impressed to say the least with such a result out of so little data.

Astrobin link below, I keep having issues with the IIS uploader compressing JPG images hard even when I upload them under the 200KB limit and this one looks terrible when the uploader crunches it from 199kb to 84KB.

https://www.astrobin.com/full/k64vl5/0/

[Startrek (Martin)]

Paul,
Nice image with your new CF newt
Plenty of detail there for only an hour
Well done !!
One observation I noticed with the f4 newts compared to my f5 newt , the Star diffraction spikes are notably shorter ( even with 5 minute subs ) on the smaller to medium sized stars
I’m assuming due to the faster optics ??
I’m considering a 10” f5 CF newt as some stage in the future ( 2022) in my new Dome
Cheers
Martin

[The_bluester (Paul)]

To be honest I was staggered with what it looks like for a one hour image. Obviously F4 accumulates data fast, but the ASI294 is noisier than the ASI2600 that will be going on it and the result is a lot cleaner than I expected for only 13 subs, the star colours in particular surprised me, the 294 never produced star colours as good as the 2600 did so hopefully the 2600 is a step up again. I am in a mad scramble now to sort cabling out properly and hopefully have another go at the same target with the 2600 next new moon. It looks like a lot of targets with the OSC won't need more than 5 minute subs so with luck, one good night might produce really nice images.

I am not sure if the F4 reduces spike length or not, this one has a pretty chunky spider for the secondary so that may influence things as well.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

A very satisfying result Paul, so quickly after receiving it too, nice work

Mike

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

Wow, what a quick turn around. Great to see good results so quickly. I'm expecting many more to come

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Thanks, now I am back in development mode. I spent as much time last night figuring out spacing to put the ASI2600 on so I can sell the ASI294. I am looking forward to seeing how that goes as a combination. The plan will be to have the ASI2600MC with it's guider and the 2600MM when it arrives set up to identical spacing so that I can flip the OSC and mono cameras between the two scopes at will. It could be really handy, put the mono on and spend time gathering a good luminance and any NB while I gather OSC data on the other scope, then swap cameras between scope and trade roles.

[Startrek (Martin)]

Originally Posted by The_bluester

Thanks, now I am back in development mode. I spent as much time last night figuring out spacing to put the ASI2600 on so I can sell the ASI294. I am looking forward to seeing how that goes as a combination. The plan will be to have the ASI2600MC with it's guider and the 2600MM when it arrives set up to identical spacing so that I can flip the OSC and mono cameras between the two scopes at will. It could be really handy, put the mono on and spend time gathering a good luminance and any NB while I gather OSC data on the other scope, then swap cameras between scope and trade roles.

Paul,
The 2600MC is a great camera , an all round performer although I had a bit of fiddling around getting my coma corrector spacing right , eventually all it needed was an additional 1mm spacer ring. As far as subs go I rarely go beyond 3 minute mark , even with mag 10 galaxies
During the summer I captured 6 x 3 minute subs on M8 due to cloud and the amount of detail in the processed image was tremendous (using my 8” f5 newt )
I take darks but again rarely use them
l love this camera
Your going to be a happy Chappy using the 2600MC in your big imaging newt
Enjoy
Martin

[The_bluester (Paul)]

This one has a Televue Paracorr and they specify the spacing as 55mm +- 4mm so the tolerance is pretty wide. My spacing with the new camera looks to be almost perfect with the M42 adapter in the Paracorr but Geoff who I bought the scope from is going to mail the M48 and M54 adapters he has as well. The M54 I think consumes about 1mm more spacing so hopefully that will work as the OAG I am using also has an M54 plate to bolt in place of the M42 telescope side. Mix and match with M54 on the scope side would be handy to be able to set the OAG prism further back without obscuring the incoming light to it.

Once I am satisfied the spacing is right I will get a bolt on adapter made for the camera side to get rid of all the screwed connections and ensure the prism lines up perfectly with the long axis of the sensor. Win win, easy setup and better rigidity.

[alpal]

Hi Paul,
excellent shot for only 13 x 5 minute frames using a colour camera.
I also have a 10" f4 CF scope.
I need to find some good skies and motivation to set it up again.
You may have helped there.



cheers
Allan

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Always good to find some inspration. Now I am seeing the defects, but I really knew about them to start with. There is a little tilt by the looks of it but I really did slap it all together in a few hours then put it on the mount, collimate it in 5 minutes and go.

[pkinchington (Peter (Kanga))]

I saw this scope on its way to you. It looked a lovely instrument and your first image with it has shown it's capabilities.
Cheers Kanga

[JA]

Congrats on your new acquisition Paul.
The results look great

Best
JA

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Now to commission it properly and have a decent go.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Wow! Very sparkly. Really nice fov too. Lots of fun ahead.

[gregbradley]

Looking very good Paul.

Greg.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Just doing some maintenance work on the scope and curing my ex techo OCD by completely redoing the cables then if the sky plays nice near the new moon I will go again with the ASI2600MC.

[Robert_T]

That's amazing on so many levels...the quality and detail possible with such integartion and only hours after getting and setting the scope up for the first time. Great things to come I'm sure :-)