Mak and Achro comparison

[johnfosteruk]

I have a 4" mak and a 4" achro, so why not do an imaging comparison says I, the mak has already proven its worth to me visually.

Both telescopes well cooled and a quick visual check on Mersenius to confirm they're producing a good sharp image - the seeing was good, the views were sharp at 250x

Not a fair comparison at all. Although the mak is shorter so much more stable on the mount, the increased FL (1300) makes it more susceptible to shake from the shutter release and the D3200 doesn't do mirror lockup. With the lower FL (1000), the achro produces a brighter image so you can increase shutter speed to compensate a little. 

Also, the increased FL on the mak is way over the dawes limit with this camera, I really need to get a motorised mount and a proper mono camera. 

Also, the mak needs more frames than the achro for noise reduction - I only captured 100 frames on each to stack 50, forgetting about the larger image.

Also, it got misty by the time I got to the mak after doing the achro first so the captured data is not as sharp as it could be.

Hence the mak image is actually smaller than the achro because I reduced it to avoid a noisy mess that is not anywhere near up to this telescope's true potential.

Achro first, then Mak. The levels and contrast processing is slightly different for each due to the slightly noisier/softer image out of the mak.

clear skies.

 

[nightfisher]

Still think the Mak has the edge if you were using say an spc 900 or other similar camera on a driven mount the difference would be a no brainer and with DSLR single frame its better