Hi all,
Well I picked up my as new ex demo Carbon tube RC8 from Bintel Melbourne yesterday and got home to a clear but very bright 83% moon sky and getting very cold so out comes the gear and setup with the RC8 replacing my old Meade 8" SCT the rest is as per the list below.
This RC8 had apparently had some issues with the internal reflections that early versions had, it turns out it was missing the modified baffle extension but it is now fitted.
So here a couple of images just to check for reflections and also to check for field flatness still using my Pentax K5D and also a Bintel flattener that is really for the ED80 but I had been told they worked ok on the RC8 and as you will see it's not too bad.
The first two images are single frame four minute exposures at ISO 800
#1 is the Southern Pleiades
#2 is the Jewel Box
#3 is ETA Car, 8 x 4 minutes with darks applied in Images Plus
All of them tidied up a bit in CS6
Very happy with star shape field flattness all the way to the edges and in addition I seem to be getting a lot more star colour that I wasn't getting with the old Meade and another big plus is no apparent vignetting so lots of pluses with this upgrade.
Next time out I'll be running the EOS 550D with Backyard EOS so that will help with focusing I hope.
I know the processing is a bit rough but otherwise let me know what you think.
Well done Ken; some nice first light images. Stars appear quite tight across the frame as you say. Eta Carina is looking good, and there's possibly some more detail there that you could stretch out.
Thanks David and Marc for commenting,
Yes first impressions are good so keenly waiting for the new moon and as noted next time out it'll be with a new camera setup in the EOS 550D and backyardeos so stay tuned as I'm hoping to do wonderful things that I couldn't achieve with told rig.
Nice going Ken & congratts on you success with 1st light
Thanks Bob,
I was amazed with what came off the camera with just some quick shots as a test. I think I'm going to call it "Little Hubble" as someone had told me or maybe I read it somewhere that the Hubble was also a Ritchey Chretian
as someone had told me or maybe I read it somewhere that the Hubble was also a Ritchey Chretian
