A galaxy and a globular...

[ollypenrice]

Not having done any imaging since the previous night I thought I'd better get busy last night. (Hi Steve, I thought you might like that as an opening sentence...)

So I started with NGC6949 and gave it 2 hours of lum and 25 mins per colour, binned. That seemed to work so I did the same for little M79 for which I've always had a soft spot. Both in the Meade 127. I will be swapping to the ZS66 and Genesis for the seasonal wide nebulae but I was pleased with the Meade's resolution on these small targets. I'm posting them somewhat cropped.

By Gad, though, it was cold. More of a time for Horlicks and teacakes than oysters and white wine.

[SteveL]

[me=SteveL]sharpens his knives.....[/me]

[ollypenrice]

Oyster knives?

[steve51450]

do you ever get any cloud stunning image by the way!

[ollypenrice]

Honesty compels me to say that, yes, we do. We only get a miserable 300 sunny days a year, here. Sob. The pro observatory 30 miles south of here (L'Observatoire de Haute Provence which found the first exoplanet round 51 Pegasi) have long term stats and open their dome on average 300 times a year. It stays open all night on 250 of those. They do a good guided tour, too. Nice telescope. You'd need a fair few burglars to nick it, though...

Olly.

[RobH]

Great, excellent detail in the galaxy dust lanes, I wonder if my LX would be capable of piggybackinh one of those Meades, plus balance weights?

Cheers

Rob

[ollypenrice]

I think you'd be pushng it! If you put a 90mm on an 8 inch Meade SCT it is just about workable but the big reractor aboard the 14 inch? Ouch. I'd just get an EQ5 or 6 myself.

Olly.

[RobH]

I think you'd be pushng it! If you put a 90mm on an 8 inch Meade SCT it is just about workable but the big reractor aboard the 14 inch? Ouch. I'd just get an EQ5 or 6 myself.

Olly.

Hi Olly, that would need another observatory though, which I of course would love, but Mrs H would lose some more of the garden....it would give me a nice portable rig though, and a good excuse to jump in the camper and come down !

Cheers

Rob