Latest Lodestar X2C views

[arkosg]

Hi all,

Finally another clear night, and a chance to have a go with the Lodestar X2C on my 8" Celestron Edge SCT, alt/az, at roughly f4.

Waxing Crescent Moon, fair bit of humidity, and the usual light pollution from nearby Vancouver, BC, but some nice views.

I rolled back to LL v0.10 after some challenges with colour balance "on the fly" with v0.11 (I need to practice with the new 

version some more, admittedly, but find the small histogram/balancing peaks in RGB in v0.11 a challenge).  Very impressed 

again in how well the stacking and images come out with LL!!  Some nice detail in the galaxies - it almost seemed even better 

"live" on the monitor than looking at the pictures after the fact.  And I was able to view a few galaxies I hadn't before - I didn't 

include all of them below, as some of the images aren't as "showy", but I was impressed that I could see them (and some 

structure!) at all....

Comet Lovejoy is still there, but without the non-linear scaling I couldn't get it's tail to show up very well...

Cheers,

- Greg A

[arkosg]

Oops, forgot to incude a view of Jupiter with my mono Mallincam Jr Pro/PC, through varying cloud, from a 

few nights ago.  I would have tried with the Lodestar, but it's too sensitive, and I can't get the exposure fast 

enough not to blow out the disk - and this was shooting at f/20!!  The Mallincam can go fast enough that this 

isn't an issue, so I snapped a few shots in the thinner cloud moments, and picked the best ones out.  Note that 

you can see Europa's shadow in the middle of the disk, and the GRS is near the top, just above the equatorial 

belt - I wasn't sure until afterward that it was there!

Cheers,

- Greg A

[Martin Meredith]

Fabulous galaxy shots Greg! I especially like the detail you've captured in M63.  NGC2903 is one I'll definitely add to my list too….

BTW I don't mind seeing non-showy galaxies (I post enough of them after all   )

Martin