Andy Mitchell

Could you combine this with an OTA from one of the mini dobsonians with fast mirrors for a super wide angle newtonian for astro photography, at least for sub APS sized CCD sensors? Something like the mead lightbridge 114 (4.5" 450mm f3.9). Suspect trying to do this with my camera would overload the focuser's weight bearing ability.

The guide star will be spread over multiple pixels in the guide camera, and by analysing the relative brightness of all the pixels over multiple frames the software can determine the centre to an accuracy in the fraction of a pixel range. The guide camera I use with an OAG has pixels almost exactly the same size as the main camera, but it can still guide.

Thanks for all the compliments, is indeed the elephant's trunk and the surrounding area. Its a big area, about twice the apparent size of the moon if memory serves.

Not sure if its the sonnar, but I've owned (from new!) a late multi-coated carl zeiss jenna 135mm f3.5 and it still holds up well. I also got the 35mm f2.4 Flektogon at the same time, all part of a kit with a film SLR. Most, but not all, of their lenses were very good and generally go for a lot on eBay as they have a cult following. Here is an example of the 135mm on the atik with an Ha filter:

Is that the 55mm f2? Think the M42 Takumars (e.g. Super Takumar) only did 50mm in f1.4. The 55mm in f1.8/f2.0 is generally well regarded by photographers. They are supposed to use identical glass inside, the f2.0 has an extra bit of metal to restrict the max aperture so they could get economy of scale on production. The f2.0 was a common kit lens, and the f1.8 was sold as more of a premium lens. I recently got the Super Multi Coated (f1.8) version and it works well, wide open star shapes are not great, but then I suspect they wont be on any lens that fast. Step down a few stops and they look great, not experimented enough to know what's optimal yet but the F3.3ish stop works well on my DSLR (APS sized sensor). Looking forward to a chance to try it on the CCD camera, discovered I needed a bit of extension tube I didn't own last time the skies were clear and life aligned free time and energy. Assuming you get a decent copy, you will be very happy with it.

For something that's three times the size of the moon its suprisingly stealthy from our light polluted urban skies. Best I've ever seen visually from the backgarden is a small fuzzy blob in the very middle of the galaxy. On the same night my DSLR on the same scope could see massively more of M31, and a couple of other small galaxies in the same frame. That was with my 5.1" newtonian. If you can get somewhere really dark, later in the year, on a moonless night, get properly dark adapted etc you wont even need a telescope to see M31