Good old 47 tuc

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

Was out on one of the only clear nights in WA for the last 3 months (damn winter). the night was Frought with nastyness that saw the 40d come up with a Error 99 (canons way of saying something is up the duff but we cant tell you what it is) and my imaging buddy coudln't get his eq6 to point in any general direction topped off with dew that could have been mistaken for rain it was that heavy... and that was just the half of it.!

The photo you see has got some really nasty coma (combination of a 2x barlow lense and MPCC) (thats another part of the nastyness night why i was using those 2 in conjunction). But the colors where really nice.

Photo specs

2x ED Barlow
MPCC (not setup)
40D 10" SW EQ6 Pro
Guided 4 1/4 DSE & DSI combo

5 x 2 min exps
Stacked in DSS
Processed in PS CS3

No dark reduction as the camera packed it in though ambient temp was ~3-5 deg giving very little noise in the image.

And also theres a picture of Lagoon that i did doing some testing of the modification. taken with a Equinox ED 80 guided with a Celestron 120mm and Orion starshoot on a EQ6pro in innercity perth using 3 minute subs and a Lumicon LPF.

[Benno85 (Ben)]

Top work mate, seems like 47 Tucana was almost a doomed endeavour considering the conditions! Alas it's a fine shot

Benno.

[rogerg (Roger)]

ahh, good to see someone else in Perth made the most of the rare fine conditions Did you determine the cause of the err99 ? cold temp causing battery/power problems? The only times I've received 99 has been power related and/or usb cable length related, and when I had a doubler on with no lens.

I was surprised when doing some photography last tues/wed I think it was (sometime early/mid week anyhow), that after all the rain we've had dew was almost a non-issue and atmospheric stability was almost perfect. I was kind of puzzled by that Perhaps all the dew buggered off to where you were!

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

Thanks benno for your words.

Yes i was quite looking forward to that night i thought that it would be pretty good conditions but ****tering can be a dew hell sometimes but im sure you will see my setup when it has the sheilds on turns the 10" into a 2 meter long tube!

ive got to sort out some connections with the focuser so i can run the 10" at F4.7 or 9.4. once thats done then im home and hosed in that section.

further more the 40d is off to the doctors so hopefully its back for next deep sky night in tammin ! im so looking forward to that and have already penned it into the calander

Im happy though with the incresed sensitivity that the mod has made to picking up the red stars. and in only in 2 min shots. yehar i cant wait for the summer months.

[Benno85 (Ben)]

No worries Brendan

What sort of mod have you had on the camera? I'm thinking of taking the leap with my 450D

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

removal only of the front factory filter then a Astronomik UV/IR screwin filter to cut down the spectrum. take the jump the results will speak for themself.! go to my website if you want to see the difference between the Lagoon neb taken with the same camera before and after. noting that the before is 10 min x 5 shots dark flat and bias subtracted, and the modded shot is 3 x 3-5 min iso 1600 no darks flats or bias taken in the middle of perth metro area... youll see what i mean

Eric Lo - Ezystyles on the forum from what i hear is the man to speak to in regards to the mod has done loads of them.

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Nice one Brendan!

You are right about the coma in the Tuc shot, still, its not too bad.

The lagoon looks a little red but some nice details nonetheless.

Cheers

Chris

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

yeah i know about the coma but the problem was that i couldn't reach focus for a start with the 2" ED barlow (that had the thread for the UVIR filter). so i removed the barrel of the barlow to give me just the lense to no avail a bit closer but still doghnuts. in dispare my mate goes i have a MPCC and remembering that people have used MPCC's to get that last bit of focus i thought well why not. HAZZAR. I gained focus but at the cost of COMA, though it was a good lesson in how to run a F 4.7 Reflector as a F9.4 with tracking as my tracking was spot on. all i have to do is put a extension between the barlow and the T ring to push the lense into the focus point. and then put a bit of a thread into the adaptor that i use for the camera straight to the focuser.! once these 2 things are sorted ill be right on! and ill post the images then

[Octane (Humayun)]

Brendan,

Well done on the Tucana 47. Your M8 has a film-like quality to it.

Regards,
Humayun