astro_john_palmer

I recon the last 17.5 seconds made all the difference! Great picture!

These shots were taken a few weeks back now... The buoy says "Slow, No Wake" which I thought was ironic with the comet in the background hurtling through space with a massive dust tail

Most recent picture from a couple of nights ago. Improving my processing slowly, with plenty still to learn and improve on (and still waiting for my coma corrector so I don't have to crop out 50% of my image!!!

do you get much vignetting from the 1.25"?

Hi Gorann, I had another go, think I did a better job of protecting the stars this time, and also actually prefer the outcome overall. I agree, so many different ways to edit and such a variety of outcomes depending on preferences.

Hey Ed, Thanks for the extra tips on fitting. I spoke to FLO and have asked them to see if any of their other focusers fit the dimensions of my existing holes. Hopefully they have something. If not I'll start carefully fixing the one I have now!

Thanks for the tips 👍 - I had considered the above focuser. In fact the company's video for the product fitting was on a C8N identical to mine. This Focuser said the OTA needed drilling anyway so I avoided it. Ended up with the same issue, except the one I chose doesn't have the alignment bolt holes and base plate the same way this one does.

Just looking at your list of gear, I have questions... do you mount your C8 and imaging gear on the Rowan HEQ5? How heavy is that setup and does the HEQ5 deal with it? My Gear is pretty much bang on 11kg which is the limit for imaging listed for the mount. Also, what Filters do you have for the 1600? are they the 1.25 mounted? or one of the unmounted options? I'm considering a new mount and a 1600 set for later this year.

Thanks very much for the tip Gorann, I will have another go and try to improve.

It's a Celestron 8" Newt f5. Camera is an old Canon 50d modified. All mounted on a severely overloaded Celestron CG5 mount! 🤣

Hi All, I bought a new focuser for my old Celestron C8N Newt. It was suggested the focuser should fit the existing bolt holes, but unfortunately not. So, before I start drilling holes, anyone have any tips/tricks to avoid me making a hash of it? Thanks!

Hey guys, Recently got my first guided images, and it all went pretty smoothly with the ASIair Pro! Struggled with some colour gradients on the Pelican but did my best to remove it. Still some blotches in there I couldn't remove.

Hi, thanks for sharing your data. I have never worked with combining narrowband images before so it was great practice for me for when I eventually get a mono setup. I probably went a little bit too heavy with the stylisation or as Michael put it - "Coffee Table" - but I love the way the crescent looks like a fire raging in space, so I went with a flame like golden orange for the crescent with the blue colours I think complimenting that nicely. I left the background HA a little more traditional red. Sorry I did not document how I got here - there was quite a lot of trial and error.

Sorry about the recent patch of bad weather! New setup with ASIair Pro, ZWO 120mm mini guide scope bundle. Had to flip my camera and guide scope upside down to bring the toque down on the dec axis. Hopefully it will help a lot actually as it is under much less strain now than when I was running un-guided! First light pending clear skies! Who wants to bet the setup fails miserably on night one?!? 😆

Oh, and the Cygnus wide field image was with my Canon 85mm lens, so I think I was at 3 mins for those shots!

Thanks Knobby. There is a mix in here depending on how well polar aligned I am. The ring nebula and the Elephant's Trunk I think were 90secs, although I had to throw away a few subs for what I assume is periodic error. The whirlpool may also have been over a minute. Dumbbell, Cygnus Wall and Crescent Neb were all 60secs, again with some subs being binned. any more than 60 or 90 seconds is not worth trying for me at 1000mm and a CG5 at the limit of its payload capabilities! I only recently learned how to drift align since I'm pretty sure my polar scope by itself is junk! That helped a LOT. All my new "investments" just turned up from FLO so I am now all set up with the ASIair Pro and guide cam for some guiding, a laser collimator (my god, my eyeballing collimation was NOT good!), a dual speed focuser (why didn't anyone tell me how bad the stock one was?!? 🤣), a bhatinov mask (hopefully fool proof focusing now). The only thing outstanding to be delivered is the coma corrector, then the delivery of some clear skies!!!

For now though (as the ASIair is still yet to arrive) here are a couple of unguided images from the last few weeks of lovely clear skies!

Hey Knobby, As quickly as I came back to this site I managed to forget about it again, so sorry for the delayed response! I'm using a newly modified Canon 50D with old trusty Celestron 8" Newt unguided (at the moment). Blazar, I ordered one of the ZWO packages with the ASI 120mm and the ZWO finder-guider. To drive it all I have splurged on the ASIair pro. I'm hoping it will integrate everything nice and easily and with a wireless setup. Hopefully I can get a bit of extra use from everything as it removes 1 drawback of astro imaging, getting cold using a computer outside and popping out every 30 mins to check it's not stopped working.

Nice! Not long had my scope back out of retirement, and fell back into the astrophotography rabbit hole. Just awaiting delivery of my guiding setup from FLO. Make sure you post the pictures once you get imaging!

Hi, I just got back here after an extremely long hiatus. Dug the Newt out of hibernation, and fell deep into the astrophotography rabbit hole again during lockdown with some of the clear skies we've been having.