gorann

Aha! I see, did not know they were called craws feets in the UK! We call them laughter wrinkels here. I still live and l still learn😅. Thanks Dave!

Thanks a lot Tom! Yes I was surprised that there was so much detail in this nebula - most images I have seen have been very fuzzy. Does "the crows feet" refer to the cluster NGC103 in the bottom right corner?

That is actually not a bad idea Wim! See what I can do over the coming clear nights. However my 3.55 m FL Meade with the full frame Sony A7s has the same field of view as your set up, but it may still catch more details.

Yes, very nice image Wim! There seem to be some violent interactions going on among the galazies "on a string" just below NGC 3718.

I am not sure of that at all, and you cannot use a link to the company selling them as an argument. Why whould it have a bit better optics? I have never seen any reviews or optics experts saying that you need two ED elements to make a great apo refractor. Most top class ones have only one (TEC, AP etc), and the Esprits are in that league. And the Esprit 100 will collect 40% more photons with the same focal length - that will for sure make a big difference. One of my scopes is an Esprit 100 and chromatic and spherical performace appear perfect to me.

A Rasa 8" just arrived. Bought it from a Swedish Astro buy/sell site for about 1300 GBP. The seller had only used it once and it really looks brand new and came in the original box. Not really a buy I had planned but the price was so good that could not resist it, and it will be interesting to try some f/1.97 imaging! Pity that most suitable big nebulae are gone for the season or now quite low on the horizon up here. I think it could be a good match for the small pixels of the ASI2600 that I ordered two months ago, just when the outbreak started in China. I wonder when the postman will bring that one......

Thanks Sunshine! But actually up here in the northern hemisphere they start getting low on the horizon so it is time to start pointing at galaxies, Many more of them especially if you have enough focal length.

Here is another scary nebula in Cassiopeia. Generally know as the Phantom of the Opera Nebula, but Tom @Tom OD , with his amazing Cassiopeia Mosaic, calls it The Face of Mars and suggested I should image it. So this one is for you Tom😎 Collected the photons on Friday night before the north obsy wall got in the way and I moved the scopes to galaxies around midnight. Used my Esprit double rig on the Mesu 200. Esprit 150 with ASI071 caught the RGB (17 x 10 min at gain 200) and Esprit 100 with ASI1600MM caught the Ha (13 x 15 min at gain 139). Ha added to the red channel using blend mode Lighten in PS. Totally 6.2 hours on a clear and monless night with SQM of 21.3.

Nice! I like the palette.

Thanks Dave and yes, even if everything else are going to sh-t here and in the world right now the weather report indicates many clear nights later in the week, and there is no moon. Not sure if I should say that nothing bad brings anything good, or how ever that goes.....🙄....

Work is closed indefinitively so we have moved from the corona infested Oslo to our house on the Swedish countryside where I happen to have my obsys and where the sky happened to be totally clear of Friday. So I pointed towards these nice galaxies with both my 14" Meade ACF (on Eq8 with my full spectrum modded Sony A7s) and my Esprit 150 (on the Mesu with ASI071) and grabbed 186 x 2 min with the Meade and 36 x 5 min with the Esprit, so totally 9.2 hours. I used the big SCT with its native FL of 3550 mm (f/10) fo obviously these are quite small galaxies (when seen from Earth that is😉). I used the Esprit data to make more of a wide field image and added the SCT data to the main galaxies. It was a nice clear night so guiding on both mounts were around 0.4"/pix RMS. That was needed since even with the large pixels (8.3 µm) of the Sony A7s, the long FL of the SCT gives an image scale of 0.49 "/pixel. I have now OAGs with Lodestar X2 on both mounts, which clearly helps - no more guide scopes for me. Here are both the wider field provided by the Esprit and the SCT "close up":

I will think about it. I also just started using the same OAG om my Esprit 150 (I have a ZWO OAG on the big Meade) and after rapidly looking through my subs from last night I may have a similar issue with the TS OAG, but not at all as bad. I have to look more into it tomorrow (right now waiting for the neighbours to arrive for dinner). I wonder if light could be leaking in from the side. Just a thought.

Just be aware that with Annie's Actions and other star shrinking PS plug ins (Like RC-Astro Star Shrink or Astronomy Tools), you risk introducing odd looking artifcts especially for stars close together. You can run Annie's star reductions several times but zoom in and pixel-peep to check. Where it looks too odd you can add a layer mask to the action and use the brush tool to remove the bad ones.

Looks very exciting! What ZWO camera did you buy - probably one that they had in stock in Europe. I ordered an ASI2600 from Pierro Astro in France a month ago but have no idea when it may arrive.... Has anyone any information about to what extent ZWO is up and running?

A stunning image and like everyone else I am looking forward to the new drizzled mosaic. After that you just have to shoot the other half of the moon😉

The winch is no problem and a cheap addition compared to building a v-shaped roof that is also obstructing much more of the sky, as Wim pointed out.

Just wondering if the Steve Richards guide also works identically for the simpler SiTech I provided with the new Mesu 200. The "old" Mesu 200 mounts Dave and I have has the more advanced SiTech II, but maybe the commands are the same.

The reason I got into this hobby not that many years ago was that I had bought a weekend house, a small old farm on the Swedish countryside, and was amazed by the dark sky on clear nights. Then I realized I needed a telescope! Now I have many scopes and two obsys. I don't think I would ever had got that idea into my head when looking at the sky in Oslo (the capital of Norway) where I live and work in the weeks.

Yes, changing the sky was my second suggestion to Robb, but it isn't a very fair one since I expect he cannot easily move. My SQM is often around 21.3 - 21.6, so bortle 2-3.

I fully agree with that - when I get a clear sky all my ideas of testing things out goes away and I just want to collect data😉

Now you are falling into the deep hollow of the f-ratio myth. A 6" refractor collects 33% more photons than a 5" one, whatever reducer you throw at it (and you can throw one on the 6" also). It still has a bigger front lens!

Although I don't think your background is very noisy, it is a bit noisy for being 3 hours, and I expect it has to do with your light pollution, which you complain about all the time - and still end up with so many great images. Three solutions: (1) more data, (2) settle for what you have, or (3) sell your house and move to a darker place😉 Or sell your 5" Tak and buy a 6"Esprit - 33 % more photons and cheaper

Very promising I would say. If you worry about framing you could just crop off a bit at the bottom.

Amazing - more galaxies than stars!

Thanks Wim!