M51 EQ8 shake down

[Nick Smith]

Hi all

Managed to get the new EQ8 guiding okay etc.  Here is a couple of hours with the C9.25 and Meade series 40000 0.63 focal reducer.  Not very happy with he star shapes, but I have an apparently better focal reducer fron Starizona on the way.  I have also ordered an OAG to hopefully tighten things up.

Cheers

Nick

 

 

[Hallingskies]

Looking good, excellent detail right to the core(s).  Star shapes look ok to me, but I wonder if your perceived problem might be down to a needing a micro-tweak on the collimation. I have a C9.25 as well and whilst pretty stable I’ve found they do benefit from being really fussy on the star test.

Best of luck with the OAG, they can be a pig to set up.

[pipnina]

Looks good!

If this is the full image (i.e. not a crop) then I might agree that you could have a collimation issue somewhere. Coma seems worse on one side.

[Nick Smith]

Thanks guys for the comments.  It was actually a crop.  I agree that this scope may be really fussy with collimation.  There may also be a bit of slop in the imaging train.  Any other ideas gratefully received from others with similar set-ups.

Cheers

Nick

[MarsG76]

Excellent detail..... nice work..

 

[tony210]

Galaxy detail is great as are the imaged distant galaxies - star bloat and over exposure is always a problem - perhaps Pixinsight star reduction - would help? - Tony.

[Laurin Dave]

Hi Nick, nice image.   I've been using a 10" lx200 with the .63 Meade focal reducer, I have a moonlite focuser on it.  Over the 9 months I've been imaging I've enjoyed and been frustrated by .. the joys of mirror flop... I got a scopestuff mirror stabiliser which helps a bit....  and more recently a zwo oag...  which counteracts it despite the stars in the guide camera being nowhere near round as they are way off axis....   back focus ... 105 mm is I have learned the magic distance from rear flange of my flattener to sensor...  this is unachieveble with my camera filter wheel oag and the moonlite..  but is achievable with a baader click lock on the back of the fr.   before I discovered this I had comet shaped stars off axis ..... at 105mm they're round across the frame of my ASI1600.  To me your stars look elongated in the same direction which suggests mirror flop, have you measured them?  Have to admit that the lx200 frustrations got the better of me I now have a Skywatchers Esprit 150 refractor...  tiny round stars...  haven't given up on the lx200 though it's good at imaging planets and I'll try again on deep sky when they're  side by side on a new Mesu200

Hope this is of some help and good luck with the oag...   I got mine focussed pretty accurately in daylight by aiming at a junction box on my tv aerial ..  I had to move the scope to make sure that box was what was being focussed on. It was that sensitive. 

Dave