First try with fastar..

[Helen]

Well plucked up the courage to take out the secondary on the NS8 and attach the fastar lens. I'm sure it will get less daunting...

It wasn't the clearest of evenings (last Thursday) but given I planned to stay up to watch the election results I thought it was worth experimenting.

All taken 30 subs of 10.24 secs. I did notice how much brighter the image was and so turned down the gain to Lo or 2. Stacked in Registax.

The results are not very good..

M13

M53 (just because it was handy)

M57

M64 - Blackeye Galaxy

I'm a bit disappointed with the image scale - should I use a barlow? (but thought would defeat the fastar idea!)

or should I just wait for a clearer night, take lots more subs and get software that copes with rotation...

Thanks

Helen

[dazza1639]

Nice images glad to see that you are putting the NS8 through its paces.

Darren

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

The fastar image scale is fine, its what you point it at that is important.

When some big nebula come round this summer you'll see what it can do, you have turned the 8" into a widefield monster imaging machine.

Smashing result from a first go, I expect its a pain to focus with being so fast an imaging system.

Captain Chaos

[CELESCOPE]

Hi Helen , ok like CC says the fast star is for certain objects, firstly it gives you that very fast data time , but you have to remember the image scale is very wide at f1.9, so forget globs and planets and galaxies, except the larger ones IE M31 and M1010 m33 etc , but its the huge Nebula that will benifit and there are plenty of them coming soon , amaerican nebula , california nebula, orion neb later on , rosette nebula ,we could go on and on, this is where fast star is usefull, we all have to have various tools for this imaging lark, so keep the globs at the back end of the scope, and u cant use barlows withfast star, its not very forgiving , dont like strangers heheheh ,

Cheers

Rog

just look at what you can get with the fast star on my web site ,

[Helen]

Thanks Guys, I'm reassured! What you've said makes perfect sense, I just hadn't thought it all the way through. It was too fast for the globs I found and I thought that barlowing would defeat the object. Oh, and focusing was rather more challenging!

Right, roll on the big stuff - looking forward to the North America Nebula in particular as I haven't seen it with the naked eye.

Its so much easier going up this curve follow those who have gone before :salute:

THANKS

Helen

[anthony]

Promising results Helen,

You have got the right idea - looking forward to more when the weather lifts again

Anthony