Equinox ED80 pro - 1st M31

[iapa]

Last night was my first real attempt with my 4 month old Equinox Pro, well, it is a shame to keep it int he dar, when there was so much dark outside last night.

Rig was the ED80, 0.85 focal reducer, canon 600d modded, CGEM-DX. PA with QHY PoleMaster (twice for luck), star alignment with Celestron StarSense. There is an LED street light off to the right - about 30 degrees.

Problems with Touptek Mono and PHD2 meant unguided- there's a thread I saw in past couple of days I'll take a look at around using WDM instead of ASCOM. 

And there's a couple of things I don't like too much:

• coma effect across the top of the image - I expect that something is a bit off re the spacing between the DSLR and the focal reducer?
• nice blue ring around the brighter stars - still can't afford a triplet APO yet

A (JPG) single image to reflect the issues across the 20 lights I almost got. A stack all 20 in DSS, using best 80% came out evenly bright. May need to look at it in something else?.

 

[Knighty2112]

Nice image, but isn't this M42 not M31?  

[old_eyes]

Hi iapa. You should get some good resuls with that rig.

I have been using an unmodded Canon 1000D on an Equinox Pro 80 mounted on a CG-5 GT mount. I find that you need a field flattener with that telescope and camera.

Also the blue rings around brighter stars when stacking with DSS is a common problem. I had exactly the same and someone on SGL pointed out that you need to go to the Cosmetic tab under Stacking Parameters and uncheck the Detect and Clean Remaining Hot Pixels and Cold Pixels options. That cured it for me. So no need to reach for an Apo triplet yet :-)

You will need to get the guiding working to build up better images. With that working and good PA, DSLRs make great images of  bright targets like M42.

Here is a recent effort of mine using that equipment. You should do better with your modded camera and stronger mount.

[gnomus]

It looks pretty good, unless you really were pointing it at M31 in which case I don't know what the name is for that optical defect.

I had to look quite closely for the coma effect.  It is just visible amd you probabaly will be able to correct this with spacing.  Delrin rings could be the order of the day.  In the meantime, just tell folks that you have a Tak FSQ - they all do that!!!!  [Please excuse my little joke.]. 

[iapa]

1 hour ago, Knighty2112 said:

Nice image, but isn't this M42 not M31?  

prickly picky

I did some of each - mixed up the images.

1 hour ago, old_eyes said:

Hi iapa. You should get some good resuls with that rig.

I have been using an unmodded Canon 1000D on an Equinox Pro 80 mounted on a CG-5 GT mount. I find that you need a field flattener with that telescope and camera.

Also the blue rings around brighter stars when stacking with DSS is a common problem. I had exactly the same and someone on SGL pointed out that you need to go to the Cosmetic tab under Stacking Parameters and uncheck the Detect and Clean Remaining Hot Pixels and Cold Pixels options. That cured it for me. So no need to reach for an Apo triplet yet :-)

You will need to get the guiding working to build up better images. With that working and good PA, DSLRs make great images of  bright targets like M42.

Here is a recent effort of mine using that equipment. You should do better with your modded camera and stronger mount.

A lot more detail.

I did have the Skywatcher 0.85 ff/fr on it.

I only managed 20 x 120sec @ ISO 800.Got some BIAS to apply, but no flats.

Issue (not an excuse) is that there is that LED street light off to the right - time to look at filters and a mono cam.

I've had guiding working before, but not with this particular camera.

Looked at that cosmetic option an both were unchecked.

 

[iapa]

and 

<very>muted drum roll..

here are the 20 M42 from last night, stacked in DSS - no darks etc. exported as a TIFF, and stretched a but in Nebulosity.

Rotated to match the one posted by @old_eyes

There' a lot of rubbish to the top right - did I mention and LED street light 60' away?