Roy Foreman

I would normally want better quality from an image before posting it here, but the weather has been so bad for so long that I have been forced work in hazy skies, gaps between cloud masses, and no true darkness. In short, I got desperate ! NGC 6791 is an open cluster in Lyra, its stars so densely packed it almost looks like a globular. Imaged with a Celestron C9.25 XLT and ASI 6200 MC full frame OSC, just 20 x 30 sec is all I could manage, hence the lack in fidelity. Hope it's worth looking at, and thanks to those that do look.

A new take on a familiar scene. Love all the dusty stuff. Usually its M42 and the Horsehead that steal the show, but in your image they take back seat to the dust clouds. Well done and welcome to the forum.

Gives me hope for some of my old DSLR images. My Nikon D810a is designed for astrophotography and it is amazing what can be extracted from it with modern image processing. Well done Gorann, a really nice image lurking undiscovered for years !

Looks very luminous and glowing on my screen. Nice image Peter.

Lovely detail. Oh for clear and transparent skies !

Had a temporary glitch with my cooled astro cam, so I fell back on my Nikon D810a for this image of M27 the Dumbell Nebula. This is just 12 x 60 sec at ISO 6400 and an IDAS NB1 Tri Band Filter. Scope was a Skywatcher 10" F/4 Quattro CF. Maybe not the most stunning image of M27 ever taken, but for a DSLR (albeit one designed for astro imaging) and only 12 minutes total integration time, I thought it might be worth sharing. Hope you agree and thanks for looking.

Very nice. Love the colour balance.

Thank you and yes, I was surprised how well it came out considering the limited capture time and slow focal ratio of F/12. Perhaps using no filters helped.

Great detail and colours, well done.

Same data set, just totally different processing. Glad you like the image. Thank you Roy

Thank you very much, wasn't expecting the halo to show, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Thanks Adrian - after posting the first image I realised that I could probably get more out of it, and a reprocess from scratch seems to have proved that ! Roy

Nice image, I particularly like the colour balance.

First time I've tried to image this globular in Lyra. Darker and clearer skies might help to improve definition. That's for next time. Stella Lyra 10" F/12 Classical Cassegrain SW CQ350 mount ZWO ASI 6200 MC Pro No filters 60 x 30 sec at gain 300

Reprocess using Affinity for stacking - it does a much better job than DSS and sharper too ! Outer halo just starting to show, but definition is not all that it could be as I've pushed it quite a lot. Definitely needs more integration time.

That little scope is doing really well Neil. Nice captures. Just shows that in the right hands even a small scope can perform well.

This was a bit of an experiment. I knew that the long focal length (3045mm) of the Cassegrain would be advantageous due to the small size of M57, but the F/12 focal ratio was definitely going to slow thing down an awful lot. Also the ever present haze and passing clouds conspired against me. Recording the outer gaseous shells was definitely not an option ! However, here it is. Vital stats as follows :- Stella Lyra 10" F/12 Classical Cassegrain Skywatcher CQ350 Mount ZWO ASI 6200 MC Pro - full frame OSC No Filters used. 60 x 60 sec at gain 300 Cloud and moon stopped play after that. Thought this may be of interest due to the unusual choice of scope, which by the way performs absolutely superbly for lunar imaging ! Thanks for looking.

Nice one Neil. Not bad for a low elevation and an achro. At my location the moon has essentially disappeared for now.

I don't consider myself an expert at collimation but I didnt find it too difficult. The real pain was trying to use an RC/CC collimation tool. Once I ditched that and used a laser to adjust focusser and secondary, collimating the primary on a star was just like doing any other primary mirror. I found it easier to use a camera and view the image on a computer screen. Use the mount controls to move the out of focus star around the screen until it shows the least amount of eccentricity, then adjust the primary to bring it back to center. Repeat this several times until the image looks perfectly concentric. Bit of a faff but if I can do it ........ !

That's exactly why I bought mine. It's a lovely instrument and a bit special. Good luck with your decision.

Hi Mike, I haven't done a huge amount of visual with this scope as I got it mostly for imaging, but from what I have done it seems to be about on par with my Celestron C9.25 XLT visually, any differences being masked by the seeing mostly at my location, and somewhat better for imaging due to its wider, flatter field. For planetary viewing you don't need a wide flat field, and the C9.25 is smaller, lighter, much cheaper, and a lot easier to collimate ! Also, if you were thinking of the smaller CC models, they do not give the true stated aperture - I think the 8" model is actually 7.3". The 10" is a true 10", but it is very large piece of kit - 17Kg. On the plus side the long 3045mm focal length makes it easier to get high magnification. Sorry I can't be more precise, but I hope this gives you some food for thought. Cheers Roy

Ha ha sorry about that ! The moon isn't best placed at the moment, but it will be again soon enough, then you can scratch that itch to your heart's content ! Be sure to let us see the results !

Considering the adverse conditions you were working with, this is a great image. Good sharpness and contrast. Well done.

Very nice. Love all the dust. Well worth all the processing hassle. I never seem to get mosaics to fit seamlessly, which makes you image all the more impressive.