michael.h.f.wilkinson

Interesting to hear that. I actually read that people often bought the SN6 with an LXD-55 mount, because that was the cheapest way to get an LXD-55, they often ditched the OTA. Later it was said the OTA was actually the best part of the deal, given all the problems with the electronics of the LXD-55. Meade certainly made an SN-8 and SN-10 (both F/4), but I have never seen a 12".

Superb image!

Cheers! I plan to add more data to all of them.

It is 6207. Closer in, there is IC 4617 as well (tiny little smudge)

Got the scope out grabbing data on this pair of galaxies in UMa. Hope to get 2 hours of data in L and 1x1 binning, and 20 minutes each of R, G, and B data at 2x2 binning in total.

Got the Meade SN6 6" F/5 Schmidt-Newton out tonight, mainly to get some data on NGC 3718 and its neighbour NGC 3729, but first to put the new ES 17mm 92° eyepiece through its paces. First target was the crescent moon. The view was absolutely stunning. The detail along the terminator was crisp, and the earthshine showed beautifully against the dark sky background. No hints of internal reflections or glare. It is definitely a bit easier to use than the 12mm. I then turned to the Pleiades, which filled most of the FOV. Stars were crisp throughout the FOV, as far I could tell. Next up was M42, which was a lovely sight, again the entire FOV looked crisp. Finally, I turned to NGC 3718 and NGC 3729. The skies weren't perfectly dark yet, but I could definitely pick out two faint hazy patches, which showed up a bit better in the 12 mm. All in all very pleased with the performance, and bagging two new galaxies at first light isn't bad either.

I also have the little brother, and just love that mount. It's been going for 25 years, with one replacement of the worm gear and a replacement of the motors (now with a Synscan Goto system). Hope to get guiging to work on that mount shortly as well

Your old mount is doing sterling work here. I just need to find the permission settings in W10 to allow APT access to the RS232 port. Then I can start guiding and using longer subs.

I spotted one of those too recently. Interesting scope. I also spotted an SN-10, but that is rather a beast, requiring a considerably sturdier mount.

A little over a year ago, on the day I turned 58, I saw that a scope I had been watching on the Dutch te-les-koop.nl website had dropped in price to a mere EUR 165. I decided to treat myself to an extra OTA, because having just one Cat (the venerable C8, of 25 years of age) didn't feel right . The black cat needed company. More seriously, a 6" F/5 scope, with its 762 mm focal length, relatively fast optics, and little coma would sit nicely between the 8" F/10 C8 at 2030mm focal length, and the APM 80 mm F/6 triplet at 480mm (or 384 mm with 0.8x reducer). The C8 is my best planetary imaging scope, and the little APM 80mm is great for larger DSOs, but the SN6 might be a good bet for smaller DSOs like galaxies. It would also be a very good visual scope for larger DSOs, with a maximum true FOV of 3.34 deg at 24.6x magnification with the Nagler 31T5 "Panzerfaust". At this price (plus the petrol for an hour's total drive to and from Harlingen, which is also in the north of the Netherlands), I felt I could not go wrong. I also had mount capable of moving the scope around with ease: a Vixen GP-DX mount, so I contacted the seller, hopped in the car, and got myself a lovely white Cat to go with the black. As you can see, the two cats get along well . The scope came with an upgraded focuser, Bahtinov mask, and dew shield, and better flocking. It is shown here with the original finder which I have since replaced with a 9x50 RACI. I already had laser collimator, so was good to go. The OTA is quite light: just 5.8 kg, which is only a little bit heavier than the C8, which means the GP mount (rather than the GP-DX) is able to carry it as well. Collimation is fairly easy, and whenever I set it up I check collimation and it is never far off. It is not nearly as rock solid as the collimation of the C8, but I rarely spend more than a few minutes to get collimation right. Visually, the scope is really impressive. The vieuws of targets like the Pleiades, M31, M33, and M42 at low magnification with either the Nagler 31T5 or 22T4 are superb. The absence of diffraction spikes, the very well controlled coma (much better apparently than the bigger F/4 Schmidt-Newtons), and total absence of chromatic aberrations makes for very enjoyable views, especially given the big 6"aperture. Sure, there are no doubt 6" apochromatic triplets in the words that will beat this optical quality, but they would tend to cost several orders of magnitude more than the EUR 165 I paid. Views of the moon and planets are good as well, but the C8 shows more detail (predictably). It has also been quite the comet catcher, bagging me 4 comets visually. So is it a good imaging scope? Well, I have tried it, and I am quite pleased with the results, combined with an un-cooled ASI183MC. To date it has all been without guiding, just tracking because I haven't got my computer to talk RS-232 with my mount (will give it a go later this year). Here are some of my favourite results. 5 hours on the Leo Triplet (still must reduce some gradients in the background) 4 hours on M101 13 hours on M27 with L-eNhance filter 1 h 38.5 m on M13 3 h 37.5 m on M1, with L-eNhance filter Not bad, especially from Bortle 4-5 skies, and such a cheap scope. The brighter stars show slight diffraction spikes, which might be due to the focuser intruding into the optical path. The only suitable extension tube I have is a bit too long, so the focuser is racked inwards too far, must get a new extension tube. All images need more data, and I still haven't found a denoising method I really like (developing one myself at the moment). In conclusion, I think this scope has been a wonderful buy, with big potential as imaging instrument for an astounding price. The nearest equivalent now on the market if the ES 6" F/4.8 Mak-Newt, which I suppose will have better correction. If ever I decide to replace this little scope, the Mak-Newts will be high on the list. For the moment, I will stick to this one (and get guiding sorted once Windows allows APT to use the RS-232 port of the GP-DX). Bottom line: should you ever find a Meade SN-6 OTA for sale for silly money: grab it!

I have a Celestron C8, and also have a MaxVision 24 mm 68 deg EP, which has the same optics as the ES24 68, and it works very nicely in a C8. It shows a far larger FOV than the 26 mm Plossl which has about 50 deg apparent FOV, and is well enough corrected to work well in scopes down to F/5. The BST has an apparent FOV of 60 degrees, so it is also noticeably smaller than the ES 24mm 68 deg. Although an F/10 scope is relatively forgiving on the EP, I do find that you still see some differences as you go to more expensive EPs. My Nagler 22 mm is definitely a bit sharper than the MaxVision, quite apart from the much bigger FOV. I use the MaxVision mainly as part of my travel set, or for outreach. It is a very nice EP that gives the maximum FOV for a 1.25" barrel.

Very nice result

For planetary observation I like to be able to adjust precisely to seeing conditions. I use parfocaliser rings on the Delos 6 and 8 mm eyepieces so they match the XWs. On my C8 at F/10, I like to have closely spaced EPs to fine tune the magnification to the seeing. I would love to insert a 9 mm between the XW10 and Delos 8, if truth be told. I certainly find the jump from 203x with the XW10 to 290x with the XW7 too much. The 254x offered by the Delos 8 very handy. Under good conditions I can even use the 6mm at 338x, especially on Mars and the Moon. The XW5 is more useful in my faster scopes.

Lovely image. Wonderful colour and detail

It is odd, has these strange dark blotches that make you feel your background has gradients caused by LP, and it is not very bright. I also had issues with the the fact that it is pretty low in the sky. Especially as Orion was moving to the west, you can see the subs deteriorating in quality as M78 gets lower in the sky. Better luck next winter, when hopefully I can travel to a dark site to image this properly

I had some data lying around that I hadn't processed properly, due to issues with dust bunnies. I made some new flats, and that seems to have sorted the dust bunnies out,although there are still some issues with gradients. I added the data to a set of 2h 45 minutes I gathered earlier, and there is indeed some imrpovement, although I still need far more (and better) data to be satisfied. Stacked in APP, colour denoising in FITSwork, curves and crop in Gimp. All data acquired with my Meade SN6 6" F/5 Schmidt-Newton, and ASI183MC (non-cooled) camera. Next winter I will have a go with the ASI183MM-Pro, and acquire the colour at 2x2 binning.

Nice capture. I have spotted it with my C8. Total brightness is not great, but because it is such a compact structure, the surface brightness isn't bad at all. A UHC filter helps

Just use the "remove light pollution" tool. Works well, I find

I much prefer removing backgrounds in Astro Pixel Processor. That seems less heavy handed. Below is the result of about 3 hours on M42 with a modded EOS 550D and an APM 80mm F/6 with 0.8x focal reducer. A lot more data, which of course helps, but the main difference is in the background processing

A.k.a. the Panzerfaust

I do DSO imaging with a mixture of cameras. My first DSO camera I used seriously is the modded Canon EOS 550D which I still use for wider targets. I then added an ASI183MC (non-cooled), initially for planetary and lunar, but later for DSOs as well, and find it a lot more sensitive. Most recently, I added an ASI183MM-Pro, and it is another step further in terms of image quality. I do not doubt your ASI2600MM will clearly outperform the modded, cooled 40D

Nice images with some great detail coming through. In the M42 image it looks like the background has been clipped to black, especially around the Running Man. Maybe brightening the background a bit will prevent this

Nice one! I have fond memories of setting up the 70 mm F/10 refractor we had at school during lunch breaks to have a look at sunspots with the solar projection kit we had built. Great fun.

With something like this, you hold on for dear life

Just for comparison, here it is next to the Nagler 17T4, which is no lightweight either