Roy Foreman

Hi Dave and welcome to SGL from a sort of local astro imager in Minehead. Plenty of help and advise available on this site Don't hesitate to ask

I have the same setup - SW 10CF plus F/4 coma corrector. and yes it does protrude into the optical path, but the only effect this has on mine is that the star images have more diffraction spikes on one side. That is - four main spikes plus a few smaller ones on one side. With a full frame camera in produces significant vignetting - even without a filter attached. The Baader MPCC3 is far smaller - less than 2 inches long and is rated down to F/3.5 but star images are not as pinpoint to the edges like with the SW one. Can't really be much more help than that I'm afraid

Thanks to all who have contributed to this topic - makes interesting reading ! Never knew that the moon and mars were included in these schemes. It would have been nice to have chosen a particular star, even if only a faint one, but then it wouldn't have been a surprise for me.

On Valentine's Day my partner excitedly presented me with a certificate proclaiming that a star in the sky had my name assigned to it. As a non astronomer she thought that she had done something really special for me, and hoped that I could locate it and take an image of it. I have no doubt that this topic will have been discussed at length on SGL in the past. Whether or not it is a scam is not the point I wish to make in this post. Stars have official names and/or numbers, and to unofficially assign someone's name to one is just a bit of fun and a nice gesture. What really got to me was how badly it was all done. Clearly these people have little more than a passing knowledge of astronomy. Alongside the cirtificate they give you a star map showing the location of your star in the sky, and a whole load of technical blurb that for the most part is little more than fantasy. My 'star' is NGC 312 which is not a star but a tiny galaxy less that 2' in size located in the constellation of Phoenix, which is at declination -52 deg. The only way I'm ever going to see it is to take a trip down under, knock on the doors of Siding Spring, and in my best aussie accent say ' Excuse me, guys, mind if I have a quick squint through one of yer scopes ' It gets worse. According to their map NGC 312 isn't actually my star. About 7 deg above the galaxy a tiny star is encircled in red. That, presumably, is my star. Yet all the technical blurb refers to NGC 312. And some of it is hilarious ! Rise, transit and set times are given for .... December 25th 2022 ! On this day it rises at approximately 5pm, transits and hour later, and sets an hour after that. So just skimming the horizon then. And from what location ? The one that really had me chuckling was when it said, Size - small, Brightness - faint, shape - round ! And yet it is so easy to get it right. I used Sky Map Pro to make a full colour print of the region showing NGC 312, plus my star - TYC 7531-280-1, its co-ordinates, magnitude, spectral type etc. and if it were in the northern hemisphere I could image it as well. Maybe I could make a decent living out of doing this ! My partner will remain oblivious to all this, of course. She must continue to believe she has done something special. I will show her the map I produced so that she knows it is a real star with a real data. Her star has always been is Albireo - arguably the most beautiful star in the sky.

I've been meaning to take photos of it all for ages. The problem is in the confines of an observatory it is difficult to get far enough back to fit it all in ! Maybe I'll get down to doing some detail photos of the various parts. Incidentally, the entire thing was built using only hand tools - no machine shop, so it's amazing what you can do it you try - I have no training in metalwork. It took many years to build. Not a project for the faint hearted !

Thank you and glad you like the images.

Thank you - so glad you like the images ! I built the mount for the 16" myself. It is a fork mount - the fork itself is so heavy I can only just about lift it. The base and RA housing are built in the style of Astro Physics and Paramount, but obviously not to the same degree of precision ! Worm and wheel sets were supplied by Beacon Hill Telescopes - 14" diameter for RA, 12" for Dec. Electrics were supplied by AWR Technology and the whole thing is fully GO TO and computer controlled. Interestingly, the motors are so large and powerful that they are connected directly to the worm shafts - no gears, no belts, almost no backlash. The OTA itself is from a Skywatcher Flextube Dobsonian - a cheap way of obtaining a decent optical set. One downside of building it myself - if anything goes wrong I'm on my own putting it right !

Tried messing around with this and the clearest I could come up with is below. The link you posted was really useful, thank you, however I was unable to match any of the semi resolved stars with those shown on the diagram. Next clear night I will have another try - maybe a longer focal length to give more star separation enabling a longer exposure to be used. Now there's a challenge for me !

Wow - so I might just have done better than I thought. To be honest I'm not familiar with all the various components of the system, but I will look into it and see what I can identify. Thanks for the processing suggestion - I'll give it a go

A few nights ago I was imaging the Orion Nebula and also took some short exposures to try and record the trapezium stars. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that one image actually showed the E and F components as well ! Next time I try this I will use a longer focal length so that I don't have to crop the image so much. The image of the whole nebula, which was taken at the same image scale, shows the degree of cropping required ! Vital statistics :- 16" F/4.5 Reflector Nikon D810a Trapezium - 1 x 0.5 sec at ISO 1600 Nebula - 5 x 30 sec at ISO 1600 No filters A welcome break in the clouds for an hour ! Half decent seeing !

Thank you. Yes worth the wait. If these results are the result of imaging on a pretty poor night then, as you say, very exciting to see what can be done under clear skies. And very frustrating too !!!

Just reprocessed the M45 image using Affiniy Photo. Think its done a better job than Deep Sky Stacker and Photoshop, but you still can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear !