Mag +14.6 galaxy with Watec

[Phil Fargaze]

Last night I noticed the scope was pointed very close to the irregular galaxy PGC 24981.

So I cranked the Watec 120N+ to slow 9 and was surprised to see a faint trace of a mottled elongated galaxy looking object!

I confirmed the observation with my Redshift planetarium programme.

At mag +14.6 this is the faintest object I have managed so far with my set up.

Considering my less than ideal skies (London suburb) I was not expecting to see it at all.

I must get round to using dark frames one day!

[Daniel-K]

id say that was quite impressive with the c9

[shirva]

Great work Phil...nothing better than getting results you never expected. ..Davy

[Phil Fargaze]

It`s great because now I`ve got a kind of benchmark for how faint my set up can go.

[Carl Reade]

Good shootin Phil now thats a DDSO!!

[Macavity]

Is that a "snapshot" of one (internal stacked) frame? If so, think what could be achieved with some judicious stacking of multiple frames. With "better" (mag 5+ skies), I can get clear images of the mag 15-16 central star of the ring nebula. But then galaxies are extended sources - more difficult? Worth you trying a focal reducer to get "faster" speeds - F10 -> F6...F3? All without the (ahem modest) collimation hassles of my 8" / F4 Photo Newt!

Whatever, a great thing, the Watec 102+. I cherish mine... particularly now they are unavailable.

Still wondering what their "replacement" will be - It's rather a long time in the coming, frankly...

[Phil Fargaze]

The AVI was about 2 minutes long recorded onto laptop using VirualDub set at 1 frame per second so there were likely 120 frames. I run it through Registax 6 and stacked it.

I don`t really know what I am doing when it comes to image processing so I do think it could be improved. My skies are about mag 3.

I did have a focal reducer at 0.4x in place.

I`ve had news of a replacement for the Watec 120+ which I believe is this, see here http://www.watec.co..../wat_910HX.html

[shirva]

Be a cheeky we price I bet you

[Phil Fargaze]

Be a cheeky we price I bet you

I do suspect that an updated product will have an updated price.

I am fine at the moment with my current Watec, I don`t plan to upgrade any time soon, unless it suddenly goes wrong!

If I may quote an initial review by Gerhard Dangl :-

I got this new camera from Olivier Thizy from Shelyak Instruments in France for testing. It has an On Screen Display (OSD) for settings and a cable box with five buttons for remote control setting in the OSD menue (Wat-910HX/RC). After compare recordings with six other cameras on real sky object M67 the result looks really great.

Sadly Watec has not announced the CCD sensor type used in this new video camera.

My first impression is that my 10" Newton would virtually grow to a 14" or may be a 16" telescope with this new camera in comparison with my own older WAT-120N. And all of this without any loss of resolution in time. It is fascinating to see the ongoing technical evolution in the camera sector.

Regards

Gerhard

www.dangl.at