AbsolutelyN

Stunning Göran, you pick up the most subtle colours in the IFN. 

Another difficult to process galaxy. For some reason the luminance channel had the most bizarre gradients which took a lot of work to remove with DBE in PixInsight. Hopefully they have been mostly removed a the background is not too bad.

5.6 hours with 250-PDS and ZWO 1600MM

https://www.astrobin.com/48w0xe/

1 minute ago, vineyard said:

Sorry to intrude but that does look a clever piece of kit.  I'm guessing it would not work with old manual prime lenses which don't have those electronic contacts?  And that is a beautiful photo of the IFN!

It will only work on Canon AF lenses - they have a list of lenses its been tested with here:

https://astromechanics.org/downloads/ascom_ef/en/manual/lens_test.pdf

11 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

Yes I am schooled in SGP focus on my wide field 135mm lens rig and the motor and belt rig I set up.  Does this EoS adapter  you describe also control the focus as well without resorting to such measures? What issues did you encounter?

Yes it controls focus and aperture. Focus control seems as good as my sesto senso to me, very fine adjustments possible. You can only set aperture when you connect in SGP so you've have to disconnect and change a setting and reconnect if you wanted to change aperture. 

The main issue was power but I don't think you'd have this problem as you have an observatory. I'm running it at the end of a 20m USB cable and there is no power left in the USB cable to power the adapter which draws power from USB. I've fixed it by installing a powered USB hub. 
Another issue was it being inconsistent at connecting. Again this could be because of my setup as it always works fine from a short cable direct into laptop. 
Finally if you add too many spacers it seems to hit a hard infinity despite still being able to manually get the image in focus. 

Overall brilliant bit of kit though and much more compact than a belt driven solution - https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astromechanics-ascom-aps-c-m42-to-canon-lens-controller-mark-ii.html

10 hours ago, symmetal said:

That's probably why my 5.25 hours at f6.3 was a bit disappointing. I'd need well over 20 hours to get something decent. 😬

Alan

At 400mm I needed 15 hours (from bortle 5) to get good detail in the IFN and that's at f/2 so I find fast lenses and scopes are the only real way to access it with UK weather.   

It looks very good to me and the colours are spot on. Have you cropped this? I assumed the 2600 would have a wider field of view. Will have to try the 2600MC on the 250PDS.

I'm still processing my M63 as some really strange gradient driving me crazy which is only on the L channel. 

Fantastic detail in the IFN, nicely done. 

5 hours ago, mackiedlm said:

Thats a fantastic image. I always find this a really difficult target to do justice on but this is right on point!

Thanks, it was difficult to both capture and process, it has very bright areas and also very faint areas making it a tough target despite its size.

4 minutes ago, AbsolutelyN said:

I was disappointed at first as unrealistically expected perfection given only aps-c and not full frame but having worked on the spacing to get it like this I'm finding it perfectly ok and very usable

This is a corner from full frame 6d

11 minutes ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Impressive! Clearly better than my 50-100 mm F/1.8

I was a little disappointed at first as unrealistically expected perfection given only using aps-c and not full frame but having worked on the spacing to get it like this I'm finding it perfectly ok and very usable. 

9 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

What are the individual subs like please?  Trying to judge the coma without the stacking that can remove some of it.

This is about as good as I've managed so far. Bit better stacked as you say. 

1 minute ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

What aperture did you use?

F/1.4 as I can barely tell the difference between f/1.4 and f/2 ... and seems pointless to got to f/2.8 as you could get a cheaper lens 🙂

6 minutes ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Very impressive image. I have been tempted by this lens, I must say, but I hadn't seen any astronomical results

It's a fantastic lens, though from reviews I hoped for better coma 

20 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

Hi mate, how do you connect the Sigma 105 to the ASI please?  Via a Canon adapter? I understand you can only control the aperture of the Sigma lens from a DSLR - there is no manual ability to control the aperture?  So how to wet it?

Fabulous image by the way!

I'm using the Astromechanics EOS adapter. I've had issues connecting and controlling to the thing but when you get it working it's superb. This image for example was refocussed once every 2 hours automatically in SGP. It's just like using any scope autofocusser in SGP and you can even set the aperture when you connect to it. 

Without the adaptor you can change aperture on a Sigma lens by attaching it to a canon body, setting aperture, press depth of field preview and remove the lens whilst its pressed. 

1 minute ago, symmetal said:

Great image. Lovely detail in the wispy bits without the background being noisy. I think wide angle shots suit this feature better than the narrower angles I've tried. 🙂

Alan

Thanks Alan. I really like narrower field of view here but they need much more exposure so harder to do. I also find it's not very easy to plate solve and guide in this area. The area is utterly fascinating though, just the starless version shows some quite amazing structures to explore.

Stars are sharp but I think you just need much more data/exposure time. Make sure you dither between every 2nd or 3rd exposure to help reduce noise. Then add appropriate bias, darks and flats if you can. If you've had success without the LPro then remove it - its just an extra piece of glass that will further limit light getting to your sensor. Good luck. 

ps. I'd also double check you are getting the exposure time you think you are as it doesn't look like 30 mins of data from a 250mm newtonian. With my DSLR I regularly think I'm taking 1min exposures only to find they are 1 second - easily done in the dark (by me anyway). 

This is second attempt at Polaris with Sigma 105 1.4 and 2600mc on a star adventurer. This time I went with 2min exposures and managed a longer integration time, almost 7 hours. 

Setup in action here - 

This is my 250-PDS in tracking last night - with star adventurer behind it. Watch for the drop in sky brightness at 39 seconds ... caused by streetlights turning off at 1:15am. 

6 hours ago, GiorgioF said:

Amazing one! What gain did you set for it? The amount of details is wonderful

Thanks - it's just unity gain and 1 min exposures. 

Stunning Adrian. The details in the galaxies are fantastic.

5 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Lol not as much as that!  Would you mind posting a photo of it fitted?  Do you think I wound benefit from one too?

Sure - I just used three very small pieces of velcro to attach it to the mirror clips. It's centred as best I could manage. Makes a big difference as I had flare radiating out of bright stars. There is still a bit but its nothing in comparison. 

Flare from your 250 didn't look anywhere near as bad from the image you posted last night so not sure but probably worth a try as might tidy them up a bit. Have you flocked the inside of the tube? The top half of mine is flocked, might help with that strange bit of flare perhaps? 

3 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

I agree that’s amazing. Can’t beat a bit of aperture 

Thanks Adam - an aperture mask also helps 🙂 

I found this one tricky in both capture and processing and didn't get as much data as I hoped but hopefully its come out ok. Hope I've not gone over board with noise reduction. 

250-PDS, ZWO 1600MM - 4.7 hours. 

https://www.astrobin.com/0ierjp/?nc=user

Stunning Craig, the first one in particular looks like it was take from orbit! 

Fantastic image Adam