Very nice M83 Chris, good colour and detail, well done
The good'ol C8, Halley's Comet, sigh, they were the days.....
Mike
Thanks Mike.
Yeah, I got the C8 new in 1986 because of Halley.
It was fun, but I never want to go back to setting circles and eyepieces after goto, platesolve and digital cameras.
Chris,
Welcome
Excellent M83
So much fine detail in the arms and core , colour is really nice too
Well done !!
Martin
Thanks Martin.
The fine detail took a lot of work.
The C8 I used was never a good performer. Always a soft focus and not usable with anything above a 12mm eyepiece. I dragged it out of the garage as a Covid project, to either fix or scrap.
Completely stripped it down and rebuilt. I found multiple problems with how it was assembled. Secondary holder was 2mm off the optical axis. Main mirror was tilted 4 degrees off the baffle axis, things like this. I 3D printed jigs to reassembled correctly.
Fortunately the mirror figuring is excellent. Star tests look great now.
I found arcsinhstretch in Pixinsight really helped preserve colours during stretching. Made a big difference.
Thanks for the PI tip. Had another look this morning and your C8 field looks great for a SCT. No hint of field curvature. I have an OSC and trying to give it a go Sunday night if it's clear. The seeing forecast looks better than usual that night in western Sydney. Fingers crossed. If I come close to what you've posted I'd be stoked.
Thanks for the PI tip. Had another look this morning and your C8 field looks great for a SCT. No hint of field curvature. I have an OSC and trying to give it a go Sunday night if it's clear. The seeing forecast looks better than usual that night in western Sydney. Fingers crossed. If I come close to what you've posted I'd be stoked.
Oh, the field wasn't flat on the original subs, I cropped the worst out.