Finally have my new 8” Carbon fibre dialed in and took the opportunity last night to test it out again. Clear night but near full moon breathing down the OTA and dew forming at 7pm , not a good scenario
Chose the Cats Paw , one of my favourite dim Nebs
Only managed just under 2 hours on NGC 6334 Cats Paw before my primary mirror dewed over at 9.30pm ( I have dew straps and control unit but removed it all to save weight , they don’t work very well with carbon tube newts ) Ideally under Bortle 7/8 and full moon on a dim Neb , 8 to 12 hours would be the order of the day using a OSC and Dualband
8” f5 Klaus Helmerich Carbon fibre Newt
Skywatcher EQ6-R pro mount
ZWO2600MC cooled to -10C , Gain 101
Antlia ALPT 5nm Dualband filter
39 x 3min dithered subs
40 x Flats
60 x Bias
EQMOD and Ascom Stellarium
APT
PHD2 Multistar guiding ( 0.70 to 0.75 arc sec total ) average to poor guiding
Stacked in DSS
Processed in Startools V1.8 OSC linear data set
Left the image as Synthetic Luminance as I didn’t have enough data to process a OSC narrowband bi colour blend ( I usually capture 4hours plus )
After initial inspection stretch , yuk , 80% noise 20% signal as expected, so just processed with a light stretch , gradient wipe and some Super Structure applied then noise reduction. Noise mottle apparent when you zoom in
Very happy with the stars , tight and round , just a slight oval ness at bottom right hand corner. No Star reduction used
Hi Martin. Your eyesight must be better than mine. All I can see are nice round stars. Look forward to what you can do with that scope under better conditions.
Cheers, Richard
Nice teaser Martin!! Super right stars mate and heaps of lovely detail and texture coming through with only such short integration. Yeah was super dewy this week - I was doing some lunar imaging and everything got soaked!
Thanks Richard and Dave,
Appreciate your comments
Yep the new rig is promising, just need a load more data
Wont be posting images for a few months , my wife and I are off to the UK for 5 weeks touring around and stopping off in Malta on the way home to visit my wife’s family for 2 weeks, I’ll still log in to see what everyone’s doing and of course view some excellent Astro images.
Hope the weather is kind
Cheers
Martin
PS:Hoping to visit the old Observatory in Greenwich , London
