NGC7023 Iris Nebula @f2 - #macgyvered

[Uranium235]

Very almost "the session that never was".... dove all the way to the dark site only to find that I'd forgotten the counterweight and leg tray/spreader. Fine, I can live without the tray... but no counterweight?.. oh dear.

So I searched the car for something I could use and found a pringles tube and electrical tape, then went looking for rocks to fill it with. Filled the tube with rocks, then taped it to the counterweight bar with the electrical tape. It was all a bit off the centre of gravity, but it was good enough to counterbalance the f2 lens, camera and finderguider.

So after all that faffing about, I'd already lost a fair bit of time. All that I could grab in the end was just 100min worth of data before having to pack up and go home (I wanted at least 2.5 hours). But, for just the short run I had it seems to have done alright, loads of dust... its still a bit low, so one slight gradient to deal with - but over the next few trips I'll fill it in with more data before eventually adding colour.

 

10x600 (L)

Samyang 135mm @f2, NEQ6, Atik 383L+

 

Thanks for looking

And one counterweight, Macgyver style

 

[toxic]

great start indeed it looks like it could stand up to some color now and what a counter balance top notch thinking Rob 

[Mr Spock]

Excellent start. There's a lot going on there.

Nice counterweight too

[Uranium235]

22 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Excellent start. There's a lot going on there.

Nice counterweight too

Cheers Michael the upside to it was that I had to eat what crisps were in there first

[Jedi2014]

Excellent image. The Samyang is a great lens. The Counterweight is even nicer :-)

Jens

[Uranium235]

1 hour ago, Jedi2014 said:

Excellent image. The Samyang is a great lens. The Counterweight is even nicer :-)

Jens

Indeed, its such a good lens I'm seriously thinking about getting another - so I can make more of my time out at the dark site (in fact theyre so affordable, its possible to have three!).

[Alien 13]

Great image, that lens continues to amaze F/2 out of the box is some achievement.

Alan

P.S. when I get mine I think I will name him Dyson 

[cuivenion]

31 minutes ago, Uranium235 said:

Indeed, its such a good lens I'm seriously thinking about getting another - so I can make more of my time out at the dark site (in fact theyre so affordable, its possible to have three!).

What do they normally go for? Which model lens is it exactly? Great image, can't wait to see the full colour version.

[steppenwolf]

Engineering on the fly - love it!

[PatrickGilliland]

Nie work Rob - one assumes you had to eat just the right amount of pringles (all of them) before stones added

Nice picture too - i did a similar shot on the Roki and it turned out nice - so expect this to be super when done......

[Uranium235]

12 minutes ago, cuivenion said:

What do they normally go for? Which model lens is it exactly? Great image, can't wait to see the full colour version.

Theyre about £350 new, which is a very reasonable sum for a lens that can operate wide open.

[Uranium235]

7 minutes ago, PatrickGilliland said:

Nie work Rob - one assumes you had to eat just the right amount of pringles (all of them) before stones added

Nice picture too - i did a similar shot on the Roki and it turned out nice - so expect this to be super when done......

Thanks Paddy, its going to take about 3-4 trips to get the data for this one. Another one of these lenses would cut that time in half... just wish I could afford it at the mo!

[wxsatuser]

Just now, Uranium235 said:

Theyre about £350 new, which is a very reasonable sum for a lens that can operate wide open.

It's more than reasonable when you think it beats lenses 3 to 5 times in value.

 

[al-alami]

Who would have thought it ... Pringles saves the night! Not a statement you hear that often.

I think they give the image some flavour.

 

[Yoddha]

Nice image with a lot of dust!

I would try to reduce the stars size to bring more focus on the faint stuff

[Uranium235]

22 minutes ago, Yoddha said:

Nice image with a lot of dust!

I would try to reduce the stars size to bring more focus on the faint stuff

Thanks  I'm already on the case with star reduction (did another version last night), but I will probably wait until I have more data before creating a finished lum master with smaller stars. Saturday is looking promising, so fingers crossed I might have it done by Sunday avo.

[Yoddha]

Crossing fingers for you!  Will wait for the next version.

Rain and cold here

 

[wimvb]

Great start. But I would have thought you'd used the full 2.5 hrs, because "once you pop, ...".

[Uranium235]

5 minutes ago, wimvb said:

Great start. But I would have thought you'd used the full 2.5 hrs, because "once you pop, ...".

I wish I could have stayed longer to make up for the time I lost, but it was pretty late and I didn't want to be driving home tired - so thought it best to pack up while I had the legs for it. Actually, its not so bad driving back at that time... not another car for miles, and the only ones you do come across always seem to insist on blasting you with full beam headlights! (until they think "oh, theres another car... I'll switch em off"... too late, Im already blind!...lol).

[Barry-Wilson]

Very cleverly (& impressively) improvised - this will be quite special when you collect your full dataset.  I look forward to it .