drjolo

This is set of this year spring galaxy hunts I made. All images were shot at my roll-off shed with Meade ACF 10" telescope and QHY163M camera on EQ6 mount. Conditions were different, but usually both transparency and seeing were average-good. I am pretty happy with this setup capabilities under my suburban sky, one thing I miss is more clear nights  

Abell 1185 cluster with "Guitar" feature. 120x1 minute, gain=100

Messier 82 galaxy. 40x2 minutes, gain=0

NGC4535 galaxy. 45x3 minutes, gain=0

NGC3628 galaxy. 55x2 minutes, gain=0

NGC4762 and 4754 lenticular galaxies. 95x1 minute, gain=100

Hickson 68 group. 140x1 minute, gain=100

Thanks for watching!

Thanks! Hmm, I didn't plan to add Oiii - the Ring itself is bright enough for RGB only. But maybe it is worth to check the outer shell if it shines in Oiii... ?

Thanks!

Yes, indeed some galaxies have been captured, and some of them are not identified in PGC catalogue:

It's been already 6 years since I imaged M57 for the first time with 6" newtonian and DSLR - I was a little bit disappointed then  This time I was prepared a little bit better and collected some subframes over three short May and June nights. It is about 5 hours of total exposures over Ha and LRGB filters. I wanted to reveal nebula outer halo and it worked, however I found it quite faint. It was barely visible in 50 minutes luminance stack, but Ha narrowband subframes helped. This halo was discovered in 1935 and most probably it contains stellar wind that was emitted before the nebula was born. 

Thanks for watching!

In HEQ5 there are following bearings:

• 6x  6006 2RS - these are main RA and Dec shafts bearings
• 2x  30205  - tapered rolled bearings
• 4x  689z  (or 618/9) - these are small bearings for worm shafts

I used EZO bearings for worm and SKF/Timken for others.

As for plastic washers - these are used for precise placement of worm at worm wheel. There probably should be some washers already, because if you want to replace them, you need to use new one with the same thickness. I cut out proper dimension washers from teflon foil.

Do you calibrate your flats with biases or dark-flats to remove offset?

I actually was not able to find a way to proper calibrate images with Pix. I use Maxim for this - its Set calibration library is fast and excellent tool. 

I am not current user of EQ6-R, but I have this mount some time ago for testing. What I liked much was very low PE - for my EQ6-R it was less than +- 6", and tracking error with guiding less than 1" (with 13kg setup on it). While it has the same load capability as NEQ6, I think the precision of worm drive has increased significantly (for my EQ6 I have PE above +-20"). You can find my full review of EQ6-R at http://astrojolo.com/gears/sky-watcher-eq6-r-review/ 

I have found link to some useful calculators in my bookmarks, and also for CCD sampling http://www.wilmslowastro.com/software/formulae.htm#CCD_Sampling . For green light and 2.9um pixel it gives f/14. 

I also have this camera for planetary and lunar imaging. I am not an expert in this kind of imaging, but I was told and also read, that for this pixel size optimum sampling is at f/15. So maybe f/18 is a little bit too much, but also Jupiter now is far from perfect position in northern Europe, so it will be hard to get decent images this season I think  

If you have regular barlow (not powermate or other teleextender) you can decrease its magnification a little by shortening distance to sensor (if it can be done at all). 

I already made an order in OVIO and now waiting for shipping cost estimation.

@Merlin66 - I have seen your site and also studied L200 construction - very nice job. I want to start with classic design and compact instrument to learn some skills in this area. Then I maybe go for Littrow design to reach higher resolution. Do you still manufacture Spectra-L200 kits?

Thanks Eric! This is interesting one. And probably in the guide camera I could see the index of selected slit in the same time  

This is my first post, so hi to all!

I started to build spectrograph. It will be pretty common solution - with 100mm collimator, 50mm camera lens and blazed reflective grating. However I stuck on the slit I would like to use reflective slit, so positioning and guiding will be convenient, however it looks that there is not much to choose. I found only 25um reflective photometric slit from Shelyak for 168EUR. Do you know any other sources? I need 25-30um slit.