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First light with the Baby Q

ShineOn

By ShineOn
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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ShineOn

ShineOn

Posted
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Such is the reputation and undoubted ability of the Takahashi FSQ85, it was with a heady mixture of excitement and trepidation that I was finally able to put the Baby Q through its paces last Wednesday evening.  It had been a long wait – the inevitable 6 weeks of almost perpetual cloud following unboxing had given rise to a heightened sense of anticipation and of course frustration.


Conditions were not ideal last week. A strong breeze was blowing through my somewhat exposed balcony location here in the Peaks, which I’m sure would have hampered guiding on my MN190 and its 1000mm of focal length. Nothing was going to deter me though, not even a somewhat neglected girlfriend in the living room!


After a couple of hours of cooling and initial set up, focus was readily achieved using a Bahtinov mask and Bahtinov grabber software. My first test target of the Double Cluster in Perseus was located and guiding initiated. Final framing done and I was ready to press the button on Artemis to kick everything off. This is the result of 15 minutes per channel in RGB (5 x 180secs each), with the x0.73 reducer plumbed in. It’s only been cropped a few pixels to tidy up the edges following stacking. 


post-19510-0-84381400-1381783630_thumb.p


I spent the next few hours collecting data on the Eastern Veil. Am hoping to get more imaging time on this before posting.


I’m very pleased with the initial results from my combo of the 85 plus Atik 460, and look forward to the next clear skies.


Simon


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lensman57

lensman57

Posted
Posted
Such is the reputation and undoubted ability of the Takahashi FSQ85, it was with a heady mixture of excitement and trepidation that I was finally able to put the Baby Q through its paces last Wednesday evening.  It had been a long wait – the inevitable 6 weeks of almost perpetual cloud following unboxing had given rise to a heightened sense of anticipation and of course frustration.
Conditions were not ideal last week. A strong breeze was blowing through my somewhat exposed balcony location here in the Peaks, which I’m sure would have hampered guiding on my MN190 and its 1000mm of focal length. Nothing was going to deter me though, not even a somewhat neglected girlfriend in the living room!
After a couple of hours of cooling and initial set up, focus was readily achieved using a Bahtinov mask and Bahtinov grabber software. My first test target of the Double Cluster in Perseus was located and guiding initiated. Final framing done and I was ready to press the button on Artemis to kick everything off. This is the result of 15 minutes per channel in RGB (5 x 180secs each), with the x0.73 reducer plumbed in. It’s only been cropped a few pixels to tidy up the edges following stacking. 
I spent the next few hours collecting data on the Eastern Veil. Am hoping to get more imaging time on this before posting.
I’m very pleased with the initial results from my combo of the 85 plus Atik 460, and look forward to the next clear skies.
Simon

Beautiful capture with tight colourful stars. It would be dream for me if I could achieve such precision in focus with my set up, a perpetual saga of bloated stars through bad seeing and bad focusing. Can't wait to see the Veil.

Regards,

A.G

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Greetings from another Baby Q fan.

This is a great image with highly resolved stars and splendid colour differentiation. I used mine with a larger pixel camera and couldn't quite get that kind of resolution.

Bakewell? I was just down the road in WIrksworth for many years.

Keep 'em coming.

Olly

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steppenwolf

steppenwolf

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This is a lovely widefield image with good star shapes, good separation between the core stars and subtle colours. There is more to be released from your current data too.

I often feel that there is some reflection nebulosity associated with these clusters (unless it is just my bad processing) but has anyone else noticed this? A gentle stretch of Simon's data here seems to show it also.

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ShineOn

ShineOn

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Greetings from another Baby Q fan.

This is a great image with highly resolved stars and splendid colour differentiation. I used mine with a larger pixel camera and couldn't quite get that kind of resolution.

Bakewell? I was just down the road in WIrksworth for many years.

Keep 'em coming.

Olly

Thanks Olly. Yes, Bakewell it is - my Tak is not the only one in town as a friend has a 106. We both enjoy a post midnight street light switch off which helps a deal and of course the Peaks themselves offer darker skies should we venture out of town. 

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ShineOn

ShineOn

Posted
  • Author
Posted

This is a lovely widefield image with good star shapes, good separation between the core stars and subtle colours. There is more to be released from your current data too.

I often feel that there is some reflection nebulosity associated with these clusters (unless it is just my bad processing) but has anyone else noticed this? A gentle stretch of Simon's data here seems to show it also.

Thanks Steve, I will revisit the data to see what else can be gleaned but to begin with I was just happy to get some small colourful stars  :smiley:

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