Galaxy hunting with the 130pds + bonus Cygnus

[Uranium235]

Friday and Saturday night was pretty good in terms of clear skies, and with the moon not rising until about midnight - the opportunity for some Lum work with the 130pds.

Not all plain sailing, for some reason - when it came to processing I could not get the flats to work quite right. On extreme stretching it looks as though the part where its was too light (in the centre of the frame) is now too dark, and there is a large, perfectly circular shadow/pattern in the background, which is about 60-70% of the size of the FOV. Beyond that, the correction of the flats then becomes too light. Odd thing is, this does not occur in narrowband.

This will be the last from the 130 for a little while, Ive now switched back to the 80ED in order to continue building on last years data from Cygnus.

All three with the 130pds, Atik 383L+,NEQ6 and MPCC MkIII

Thanks for looking

Rob

M101 (Warm-up target):

8x300 (L)

 

Leo Triplet

20x450 (L)

 

And lastly, just before I packed up - DWB111 in Cyngus

3x900 (Ha)

 

[Earl]

This scope is working very well for you

[lensman57]

Those are truly beautiful and full of detail, I take my hat off to you. I guess that this is what we wait for all year long, just  a few  hours of clear skies and we can do our stuff, that is not a lot to ask for is it?  

Regards,

A.G

[Epicycle]

Fantastic set of images, go for colour on m101 and the triplet! This is where the 130 might beat a medium apo,

Cheers

E.

[tingting44]

stunning! ill be sad not to see any more from you from the 130 for a while, good hunting with your 80ED tho

[GuillermoBarrancos]

Very Nice!

[C7tsj]

Fantastic, I like M101 out of the above. Great images.

Mark

[wookie1965]

Brilliant images

[Uranium235]

tingting44, on 20 Apr 2014 - 8:49 PM, said:

stunning! ill be sad not to see any more from you from the 130 for a while, good hunting with your 80ED tho

Dont worry, just like Arnie - "it will be back"

I just fancy a bit of refractor action for a change, and not have to fiddle with things constantly. Once the short summer nights begin to bite, it will make a return.

[Uranium235]

Something else from the two night session - the Markarian Chain. Could have planned it a bit better, the galaxy on the far right seems a bit squeezed in... whoops!

Much harder to process this one as the gradients and odd illumination was a lot worse, I had to be rather heavy-handed with it.

8x450 (L) 2 panes

 

[Quatermass]

Lovely images that little 130pds is a stunning bit of kit I am so tempted to get one but saving up for a baader Ha filter but seeing these I cant make up my mind which one to go for first mmm.

[Uranium235]

Baader Ha... get that. It will transform your imaging (especially with a CCD).

The 130 is something that needs to be worked on, depending on the standard you set. If you want perfect stars in all four corners, then youve got your work cut out  

[morimarty]

Those are a lovely set of images from the little 130pds Rob. in particular the propeller shot!

[paraletic mirror]

killing it with your setup, amazing images

atb para

[Uranium235]

Thanks

A bit of good news is that I got my drill press today, all im waiting for now is my drill bit, tap and M2.5 allen bolts from modelfixings. Then I can get to work on that 130pds focuser and try to turn it into something special.

The goal is to get good corners from a centrally focused star, which all too often turns out 3 good corners and one dodgy one (leading me to find an alternative focus point). With the MkII focuser mod it will be tiltable and rotateable (post corrector), so I can finally nail that last corner. Its taken nearly a hundred quid to tool up though!

[laser_jock99]

Thanks

 

A bit of good news is that I got my drill press today, all im waiting for now is my drill bit, tap and M2.5 allen bolts from modelfixings. Then I can get to work on that 130pds focuser and try to turn it into something special.

 

The goal is to get good corners from a centrally focused star, which all too often turns out 3 good corners and one dodgy one (leading me to find an alternative focus point). With the MkII focuser mod it will be tiltable and rotateable (post corrector), so I can finally nail that last corner. Its taken nearly a hundred quid to tool up though!

Ahh....scope modding, all part of the fun. Sell your design back to Skywatcher!

[Uranium235]

laser_jock99, on 29 Apr 2014 - 10:54 PM, said:laser_jock99, on 29 Apr 2014 - 10:54 PM, said:

Ahh....scope modding, all part of the fun. Sell your design back to Skywatcher!

Heh thats if it works. It could still all end in glorious failure.

Never tapped a hole before, so that will be fun! Was it two turns forward, one turn back? (dont want to snap it, not cheap!)