Lead_weight

Last week I managed to get an hour of RGB data with the ZWO ASI071 camera doing some tests for William Optics on this scope. The clouds came in quickly and I had to stop. The next day I decided to capture 4 hours of HA data on the ZWO ASI1600MM with an Astrodon 5nm HA filter. I combined the two by removing the red channel from the RGB data and replaced it with the HA data, then cropped the final image to the 1600's chip size.

Thanks all! 

I shot this over 6 nights. We had an amazing go of clear nights in a row. Now it's all rain until next week. But while it was clear, I managed two nights per filter on my newest scope. A total of ~ 760 3 min images. I think the total imaging time was 37.8 hours. Shot it through my newest scope the RedCat 51mm. It did well, but could have used a belt focuser. I managed to get one together from Moonlite, but only just after imaging this. The scope was able to hold focus a good bit of the night, but the quality curve looked like a swan dive towards the end as the scope lost focus at the end of the night each night. I got out my old trusty AVX to manage the aiming parts of the setup. Guided by an old Orion SSAG I had lying around and a recently acquired ZWO Mini guide scope since it matches the RedCat so well. But I think I'm going to need to swap out the guide cam for something with smaller pixels. Overall though, it worked.  Main camera was ZWO ASI 1600 MMC. I used 5nm Astrodon filters.

Wow, that made a big difference. I find it difficult to capture nebulas in RGB unless I have very dark skies.

Nice image!

My Redcat just came in this week. Had it out for the first time last night. I've been following the issues here and on Cloudy nights. Just wanted to add another another reference point. This is about 6 hours of HA. There's very slight coma at the corners. FWHM and Eccentricity look ok. I'd be happy to share data if someone wants a closer look. The larger stars have a very strange look to them, like pinched optics. Someone over on Cloudy Nights thought it might be an internal reflection. I've used this exact imaging train on other scopes and not seen the issue, so I suspect the problem lies in the scope itself.

7 hours ago, alan potts said:

A very nice image, keep wanting to mount up my 12inch SC with the reducer. Can I ask how you guide it to get such a fine result?

Alan

Thanks. I'm using the ZWO OAG along with the ZWO ASI174 mini guide cam. And i have a moonlite focuser made for the Edge, which has a reduced profile. My guiding is usually around .3-.5 RMS.

I took this over three nights. Not as many hours as I would normally like. 8.8 hours total with the ZWO ASI071MC-Pro and the EdgeHD 11" with .7x reducer and a CGX mount.

I have a fair amount of light pollution (Bortle 7-8), so this was 525 60s subs to keep under the LP. Integrated in APP, then processed in PixInsight and Photoshop.

I get between 1.8-2.4 on my 102mm refractor. On my 6" RC I get between 4-6, though I feel like I've seen lower, I just don't always watch it that closely. A lot of it is seeing dependent. 

Is there an equivalent version of this scope in the U.S.? I would love one of these smaller fast scopes, but can't seem to find an equivalent, and SkyWatcher doesn't carry it on the U.S. site.