Apologies if M42 gets dimmer tonight !!!!

[Catanonia]

I have eventually got my TS 200mm SuperNewt F2.8 working and I am currently sucking M42 out of the sky in 3 minute bursts :D

So apologies if it gets dimmer tonight, all my fault

[Catanonia]

Say hello to the face in M42.

Loving this scope, a single 3 min Red sub unbinned and only leveled in MaximDL. Actually a screen print into paint

Subs are rolling in, but bound to have problems with the moon and gradients.

2 mins is too much for luminance, kills the image LOL Will wait till the moon goes down and grab some luminance

Only real problem I have now is the time it takes to download from the CCD :D I want a faster CCD as will soon take 10 second subs and it will take 10 seconds to download MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

/Cat : Chuffed and eyeing up the 12 inch version of the scope

[Catanonia]

In Blue

[blinky]

Looking good Cat - stars look nice and round, great to see what this scope is capable of.

Sent from my Scroll Excel using Tapatalk

[Uranium235]

Leave some for me ey?

Its what im having a little nibble at right now nice star shapes on your new scope too!

[Catanonia]

ouch in a little over 2 hours I have 1.65Gb worth of subs... And that is not including darks, bias or flats !!!!!!!

Now onto M81 and M82 for comparison to the old scope. Hopefully about 4 hours worth in 5 min subs. Lets see if I can get some flux this time....

[RobH]

Great depth, which will no doubt be taking very little time at that focal ratio.

There's something odd going on though...your stars are a very strange shape...certainly not round.....TBH...I was out briefly with my new 12 inch GSO RC....I'd have killed for those stars....I'm getting multiple images of the same stars!!

[Catanonia]

Great depth, which will no doubt be taking very little time at that focal ratio.

There's something odd going on though...your stars are a very strange shape...certainly not round.....TBH...I was out briefly with my new 12 inch GSO RC....I'd have killed for those stars....I'm getting multiple images of the same stars!!

Colimation is about 90%, still learning

I hate it when things go wrong, my CCD -> filter wheel connection died tonight, having to resort to COM interface to control it.

[RobH]

I seem to be getting multiple star images, which I'm guessing are reflections as I don't get them when I use an eyepiece, but I've never had them with the same camera/reducer/FW combination on different scopes....In vain, I tried a skywatcher laser collimator but found it to be nowhere near collimated itself! Might just bite the bullet and invest in a hotech CT collimation kit.....nearly £500 though

[derrickf]

Welcome to the joys of collimating big RCs.

You might want to take a look at the Takahashi collimating scope - providing you have a centre-spotted secondary, it makes RC collimation a doddle compared to any other method.

Dave Osborne wrote up a procedure for using the Tak collimating scope to collimate a Toscano RC but it is virtually identical to the procedure I used for years with my RCOS 12.5" developed by Stan Moore and others and should work with yours.

HTH and good luck

Derrick

I seem to be getting multiple star images, which I'm guessing are reflections as I don't get them when I use an eyepiece, but I've never had them with the same camera/reducer/FW combination on different scopes....In vain, I tried a skywatcher laser collimator but found it to be nowhere near collimated itself! Might just bite the bullet and invest in a hotech CT collimation kit.....nearly £500 though