NGC3718, an excecise.

[ollypenrice]

I'm trying to decide whether or not to buy a small pixel camera for the TEC140. It's great with the Atik 11000 giving a decent FOV and 1.8"PP resolution on large targets. However, if I had a small pixel Sony I'd be able to present small targets at more than twice the final size of the present setup. It might make a half way decent galaxy scope that way. So the first thing was to push 1.8"PP to the limit to see what it could give. We shot 8hrs in L and 1.6 hrs per colour so as not to be short of data. This is the result, presented as a tiny fragment of the full frame. It's tempting to believe that using pixels less than half the size might be well worth doing in galaxy season.

 

The main galaxy is NGC3718. Above it is NGC3729 and the smudge n the right is PG35561. The galaxy cluster to the left of NGC3718 comprises, from the top, PGC35631, UGC 6527 and 6527B, plus PGC35709.

Olly

Edit, for the full size, click on the image and the full size button is lower left.

[symesie04]

Very nice. Yes it would be nice to see that glass put to work with some close up action. 

[wimvb]

10 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

I'm trying to decide whether or not to buy a small pixel camera for the TEC140. It's great with the Atik 11000 giving a decent FOV and 1.8"PP resolution on large targets. However, if I had a small pixel Sony I'd be able to present small targets at more than twice the final size of the present setup. It might make a half way decent galaxy scope that way. So the first thing was to push 1.8"PP to the limit to see what it could give. We shot 8hrs in L and 1.6 hrs per colour so as not to be short of data. This is the result, presented as a tiny fragment of the full frame. It's tempting to believe that using pixels less than half the size might be well worth doing in galaxy season.

[...]

 

Olly

Go the CMOS path? The new ZWO ASI1600 has 3.8 um pixels. I would be very interested to see what you can pull out of such a camera. As you mentioned in another thread, most of DS work with ZWO cameras is on bright targets. But with this new version that might change.

[ollypenrice]

19 minutes ago, wimvb said:

Go the CMOS path? The new ZWO ASI1600 has 3.8 um pixels. I would be very interested to see what you can pull out of such a camera. As you mentioned in another thread, most of DS work with ZWO cameras is on bright targets. But with this new version that might change.

Yes, this has to be worth thinking about. There are also plenty of CCDs which would work as well, like the Atik 460. Times are changing!

Olly

[symesie04]

Yes its very exciting. The thought of just 1 to 5 sec exposures which presumably eliminates the need for clumsy guiding and expensive mounts. All of a sudden the widefield kit of old is the new deep field kit of today. I wonder which cameras would work best with 400 - 600mm lenses.

[ollypenrice]

26 minutes ago, symesie04 said:

Yes its very exciting. The thought of just 1 to 5 sec exposures which presumably eliminates the need for clumsy guiding and expensive mounts. All of a sudden the widefield kit of old is the new deep field kit of today. I wonder which cameras would work best with 400 - 600mm lenses.

I'd not be too hasty. What is currently being demonstrated by the new cameras is what has previously been demonstrated by webcams etc: an ability to catch bright targets in multiple short exposures so as to beat the seeing and get remarkable resolution. But we also want to catch faint stuff and I'll be lucky to live long enough to see that done in short exposures, I fear. (Actually I'm not sure that I do want to live long enough to see sole oik with a mobile phone beat our 400 hour Orion on his way back from Macdonalds - but the day may come! =

Olly

[leemr]

Looking good, Olly! What sort of FWHM are you pulling on average? One thing potentially worth considering is drizzling, rather than buying more hardware.

[pete_l]

On 5/6/2016 at 16:44, ollypenrice said:

 if I had a small pixel Sony I'd be able to present small targets at more than twice the final size of the present setup.

What sort of results do you get with the existing camera by slapping a Barlow (or equiv.) on the scope?

p.s. Did the FWHM of your images support a smaller arc-sec / pixel? If not then an image processing approach may be the best option.

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, pete_l said:

What sort of results do you get with the existing camera by slapping a Barlow (or equiv.) on the scope?

 

This would be unlikely to work. The TEC has its own field flattener with specific spacing and I've no idea how a Powermate would play with that. I doubt very much that it would cover full frame either. 

If going down the high res route with the TEC I'd also want the speed of the Sony chip over the Kodak, I think.

Olly

[swag72]

An intersting experiment Olly and I'm glad that you finally got around to it Looks like the small pixels are going to work well with the TEC