Steve C's image showed how spectacular this object is in Ha, so it had to be worth a try. I thought that it might be possible to get some colour as well, but the full moon was just too bright - will try again later and will try for some more Ha to go a bit deeper on the biggest lobe and the dim filaments. Thanks for looking - appreciate any feedback. Regards ray
132x1min 6nm Ha
200f4 RCC1
SX H694
NEQ6 with 50mm guidescope
1.25x scaled - heavy crop
thanks Mike. Really looking forward to seeing what your system can do.
The 200f4 Newtonian is a pretty good match for the camera, but it could stand a bit finer sampling in current seeing conditions. I am planning on getting a 300mm f4 scope that will be the basis for a general purpose system - 694 for hi res, larger pixel camera for wider field imaging and a 5x Barlow for planetary imaging. Regards ray
That's pretty impressive Ray! I'm hoping to get some colour tonight on mine.
Cheers
Steve
thanks very much Steve. hope it goes well for the colour - clouded out here. Thanks for posting your excellent Ha image - gave me some inspiration to try it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Garbz
Wow lot of detail there. Well done.
thanks Chris. Sure is a spectacular object.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RickS
Very nice, Ray! That set up is working well.
Hi Rick - thanks. Still some things to sort out, but it is great fun to finally have a system able to reliably image some of these things with reasonable resolution.
thanks very much Marc. Was reading up on this and was amazed that it is so big - it would take up most of the space between here and Alpha Centauri! The central star apparently has a surface temperature of 200,000K. It is just mind boggling how much energy must have been released when it detonated.
regards ray
The CC is essential at this pixel scale Robin (1.17arcsec). In early testing, the image quality was found to drop off due to coma at about the edges of M83 (about 12 arc min across) - see image 1 (no CC and there was also some image plane tilt in this image). The full frame is shown in image 2, downsized to fit the post and displaying significant coma. At the edges of the full 0.89x0.72 degree field of view, coma is horrendous at full resolution - image 3 shows the centre and four corners of a typical sub at native resolution (stretched of course), with an extra panel showing the lower right corner without the RCC1. Huge difference.
The RCC1 has 3 elements and tidies up the coma without appearing to reduce central resolution - something that I have read can be a potential problem with the simpler 2 element CCs on parabolic mirrors.
It's not really that bad, seen a lot worse.
I'm looking for a camera to do galaxies with this 12" newt.
If they were free I'd have one
Lets see what mike comes up with
It only cost a couple of hundred bucks to fix it, so why not.
if you are looking for something solely for galaxy imaging, the 674 cameras are significantly less expensive. I rarely need the full 6mp of the 694 - unless the EQ6 is having a bad night and objects need to be searched for. Something with a KAF8300 would probably also be a good option, giving 0.93 arcsec/pixel with your scope. Regards Ray
Nods, this atik is huge .. It's honestly a lot harder than I thought to find a target that fills the frame, even at 1.2meters odd.
I got an eq8 now, finding things is easier.
I tried looking for images from a 10" I had with no corrector and an 8300 chip, Can't find em.
Ray, Had a closer look at that image. Top right is good, everything else is suspect, but the central object looks fine to me but it's probably warped as well. Check your collmination.
I use a 3" asa corrector which is pretty good but connectors are the issue. You have to get them made, it's a flange not a thread.
which image do you mean? If the full frame mono M83, that was the first light with the camera, without a CC, with significant image plane tilt and with a collimation offset due to focuser movement - pretty ropey, but all since fixed. Only posted it in answer to your query if I had tried without a CC, not as an example of current performance.
the multi-panel image shows the current situation with full image scale crops from the centre and the four corners of a stretched sub. the extra panel at centre right shows what the lower right corner looked like before the CC was fitted. The CC clearly helped.
A 3 inch CC would be essential with your large chip - the RCC1 is not useable beyond APSc. Connecting flanges sound like a good idea, but my whole imaging train, apart from the scope, weighs about 1kg and T threads seem to do OK without any noticeable bending or alignment issues. Even the 2 inch GSO focuser is strong enough to handle it with a couple of mods. regards Ray
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