New Wide Field setup...

[Macavity]

I always have a yearning for wider fields. But, as WE know, not always

easy to achieve with 1/2" or 1/3" chips? But, throwing caution to the

wind (and far too much dosh) I bought a 70-200mm Canon lens...

And *positively* my last major spend on Video Astronomy! 

First go last night. To get an idea, here's  M27 at the full 200mm:

Despite the challenge of manual focusing, good enough for me?

My real intent is to image things like "The Coathanger" at 100mm:

(Can you see the open cluster at the right hand end of the stars?)

Or even the WHOLE of M31 for a change (Again at 100mm):

Finally, I went back to 200mm for the Pleiades through cloud: 

No GREAT triumph, but we hope for better things? (Clear skies, long exposures) 

If we are talking *really* experimental (totally scary!) stuff...

The "Elephant's Trunk" is somewhere in all that, I hear.

Aside: I tried to separate the STARS from "background"

(now colourised) nebulosity with the *Straton* software.

But I do reckon such things are worthy of experiment.

P.S. As seen, I did get one "All Sky" (Video) Perseid:

[aparker]

Chris - great results - they look pretty well focused to me.  Your full M31 image is a hard one to capture.  My math says that a Hyperstar equipped C8 with Ultrastar camera could do it, although not with as much framing room around the galaxy as you have with your 100mm Canon.  I feel like I am going to have to go that route eventually.

[Garethr]

Chris,

Great stuff mate. Keep going with the experiments

Gareth.

[laudropb]

Very nice set of images. Thanks for posting.

[bigal1]

Great results nice to have that wide field with astro video ☺

[Macavity]

Curiouser and curiouser... I must admit to slight mixed feelings about the above!

But I suppose one has to bear in mind that there is a loss of three magnitudes

with a 50mm f/4 camera lens over a 8" f/4 Newt. It was only a 500s exposure.

But then I discovered another fun diversion - "Contrast Masking" (in the Gimp):

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/ContrastMask/

Normally, I try to improve the image directly... levels, curves, contrast etc.

But with Galaxies etc. (and restricted to eight bits?) one is always fighting

to dig them out of the noise? The above was my best previous effort:

But with a little (slightly over enthusiastic) contrast masking:

I could maybe convince myself, I'm seeing a bit more galaxy?

(Hmmm... even the 910HX is showing a bit of amp glow now)

Aside: I was able to get rid of this with IRIS gradient removal...

After a while it becomes completely an artificial construct tho?