First light, and NGC5775 with friends.

[ollypenrice]

The same target was shot here last month, in a lot of moonlight, by guest Michael Lorenz using our TEC in its previous guise, mounted on an Avalon Linear and carrying our Atik 11000 at 1.8 arcsecs per pixel. Michael posted his results on Astrobin. There was an awful lot of moonlight at this time so I think he's done wonders. http://www.astrobin.com/292676/B/

So here's the same thing but at twice the resolution and done in the dark time. The TEC is now riding on our second Mesu 200 and is carrying an Atik 460 I bought from SGLer (and friend up the road) Jessun. 13x15 minutes. Darks and flats applied. It needs to be seen full size (click on the image and there's a button lower left.) It would be nice to get more L and then colour but we have new guests arriving today and they might not be interested in doing more on this, so I can't promise a rapid follow-up!

The new camera is so clean and quiet after the big Kodaks (though these clean up in calibration.) Also the fast download is a luxury! All in all a very good night. This setup will give hours of imaging delight, I'm quite certain, and the 11 meg remains available. Swapping cameras/wheels is painless. (The 11 meg wheel has a large rear aperture so the 460 has its own wheel and filters.)

Olly

[ollypenrice]

Ooops, this is the observing thread. Sorry mods, could you put in into DS imaging please? Sorry about that.

Olly

[Ishan Mair]

Terrific !! Didn't even know these existed ! Galaxies fascinate me and so does this image.

[swag72]

This looks a mighty interesting object  All looks to be working well....... Still no mount for that Meade?

[ollypenrice]

33 minutes ago, swag72 said:

This looks a mighty interesting object  All looks to be working well....... Still no mount for that Meade?

Gimme a break, I've only just got this lot up and running!!!  I'll run the Meade on the new mount fairly soon but this is so much fun I don't want to disturb it. I now have lots of colour and a bit more lum on the galaxies so watch this space.

Olly

[PatrickGilliland]

27 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Gimme a break, I've only just got this lot up and running!!!  I'll run the Meade on the new mount fairly soon but this is so much fun I don't want to disturb it. I now have lots of colour and a bit more lum on the galaxies so watch this space.

Olly

 

I will watch this space then - great target and looking look another lovely image on the way.  Some of those friends look interesting may have to get a bigger scope onto some of them too....

[Barry-Wilson]

Congratulations Olly, it's great to read that even after your years of experience, new kit is still exciting and motivating .

[ollypenrice]

Truth to tell, I'm fighting with the colour data from this outfit. This image is proving tough, as is a more 'simple' one of M13. I'm beginning to think that the rough old Kodak is actually the better chip. The jury is out... Back when I have something worthwhile to say.

Olly

[swag72]

12 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

......I'm beginning to think that the rough old Kodak is actually the better chip. The jury is out.......

Get your Tin hat Olly..... Surely there's no way that a Kodak chip, especially one as old and noisy as yours can be better than the Sony.....  

[ollypenrice]

Just now, swag72 said:

Get your Tin hat Olly..... Surely there's no way that a Kodak chip, especially one as old and noisy as yours can be better than the Sony..... 

Heh heh, I find a kind of perverse satisfaction in finding the new (second hand) Sony chip camera a bit of a fight. People have always been kind about my stars, shape and colour, and I have always felt that this praise was unearned since I don't really do much, beyond the very obvious, with my stars. Hmmm, well nobody would have much good to say about the stars I'm getting from the Sony. They are all over the place (in the colour layer.) The noise level is low from the Sony and it's quite sensitive. All of this gets to look good till you start to process and then it falls over, at least for the moment. It seems pretty obvious to me that this is lack of well depth. Whenever I do a stretch I find that the image looks OK but that a huge empty space has appeared on the left hand side of the histogram. When I reset the black point there is a noise explosion in the background. The chip does not want to fill the full dynamic range available on the screen. If this isn't lack of well depth, what is it?

Veery interestink....

Olly