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IC5070 Pelican - 130pds


Uranium235

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Tonight was a bit of a short session, it started off great but by 9pm the sky really went downhill in quality, so I didnt even reach two hours. No chance to add a second pane to this one then (was hoping to get NGC7000 too). Oh well, maybe next week (though the forecast says otherwise!).

I seem to have picked up a little bit of flex, nothing too bad - everything probably needs tightening up again since ive had it apart a few times recently.

Hmmm this gives me a tough choice, do I use the 130pds or 80ED for this years Orion project?

IC5070

10x600 (Ha)

130pds, Atik 383L+, NEQ6

Calib: Flats & Bias

Thanks for looking! :)

Rob

10952687693_96ff1d9c38_b.jpg

 

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Looks pretty good to me Rob. One problem though with tightening up the imaging gear is the nightmare of undoing it later! Many times I've found spacers and other components of the imaging train jammed, almost welded together, if tightened up a lot.  

Martin

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Cheers Martin :)

Im hoping that I wont have to take it apart again for a long time, but Ive since learnt that a pair of marigolds or a bit of rubber can make short work of cold-welded adapters (its all about equal pressure). Im pretty sure its flex because the hot pixels were drifiting in the same direction as the slight egginess in a few of the stars, I'll give the finderguider a tweak and tighten the bolts up a bit more.

But its certainly pulling in the data, I dont think I could have gotten it this clean with just 1hr and 40min on the 80ED.

BTW: This is full-frame as well, with only minimal cropping to remove stacking artefacts.

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Cheers Sara :)

To be honest I had no idea whether it would work, but its the only way I could get below f5 (with good/perfect colour correction) for a reasonable price.

I know its not quite as sharp (yet) as fancy-dan triplets that get most of the attention, but it should not be too far behind if given a decent run of exposure.

Perhaps the real test will be in LRGB, im just waiting for some moonless nights so i can get stuck in.

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morimarty, on 20 Nov 2013 - 4:43 PM, said:

This is looking really good Rob, I think I'd keep the 130pds on the mount?

I think its going to be that way for a while yet. Though its by no means the end for the 80ED, thats far too reliable to ditch. Plus, its a bit of a buzz punking other telescopes that can cost quite a bit more :D

Another unexpected bonus is that I can now do the majority of my flats indoors without having to refocus between each filter (bar Lum). Another thing ive just thought of is that I can transfer the focuser/corrector mod to any PDS newt, so that opens up the 200pds. Hmmm running one of those at f4.5, binned 2x2 would be very interesting indeed - though a telescope that size would be a totally different kettle of fish to handle.

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Stunning image, has a great feeling of depth... :cool:

..what CC are you using?

It is the skywatcher coma corrector, except mine has had a little surgery done to it.

At the moment the 80ED is out there, ive taken the 130pds down for collimation. For some odd reason i cant get the centre of the corrected field centrally placed - so in the flats, one corner is darker than it should be (meaning its not corrected) - even though it looks correctly collimated. Its nice to be going so fast, but its another thing trying to get good stars in every corner (something the 80ED does without breaking a sweat).

Ive tried it with the MPCC, and its much more forgiving of collimation than the SW corrector. So for the sake of reliability (or should I say tolleration of my collimation!),  I might go with the baader corrector for now.

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Had a bit of a breakthrough in regard to collimation, the flats are now reporting a more symmetrical amount of illumination between centre and corner(s) with the field of correction centred at the middle of the chip. Shame I cant test it tonight as ive already set up and packed away once, it looks nice out there - but this man-flu says go to bed..... sniff :(

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