Celestron 8 Edge HD : First Light (Imaging)

[Craney]

A scope I have always wanted to own. 

Previously I had a slightly tired Meade Lx55 8inch SCT which gave me good views but never the best.  Collimation proved to be the Achilles heel.  It took an age to get anywhere near decent and then it held for perhaps a session or two.   A rather unfortunate accident when 'tweaking' the collimation one more time (!!!!)  left a chipped mirror..... yikes... that sickening crack still resonates.....

What it did do though, was open up to me  the practicality and versatility of the SCT design.   A compact 8" scope that can image the planets at F20,  DSO's at F7 and even wide field at F2.

Money-wise, anything bigger than a 8 inch would break the bank.  Quality-wise, anything other than an Edge would leave me wanting to try one.... so an Edge 8 HD it was to be.  They just don't come up very often.....until last week.... on SGL.  Thanks Francis.  

Getting a clear night within 24 hours of getting this scope was too good to be true....wasn't it ??

Well the weather gods must have been grumbling about it,  I got about 2 hours, but it was enough.   Straight onto the Crab nebula.   Now here is an object that I could compare to my old 8" Meade SCT.

Below was taken using the Meade 8"SCT with an Canon 600D  (12mins RGB)  and not much idea about imaging or processing.  This was taken about 2 years ago.

This is from last night.....  Celestron Edge 8 HD with Atik 414 ( 25mins Ha, 12 mins O3) 

The image above was beginning to be effected by high cloud filtering in, so I quickly turned to the Moon and took a very quick 2 frame mosaic.

I'm sure I read somewhere that Imagers in the US had tried to use the CCDT67 reducer from Astro-Physics before the specific Edge reducer had become available.   So with no regard to spacing as the clouds came in, I gave it a go with the CCDT67 and got the Moon shot above with the large chip Canon 600D.  No  obvious aberrations from hell ... mmmm??? ... be interesting to give this reducer a shot with some DSO's.

Anyway, I must have really angered the weather gods because it is blowing a storm outside tonight.   But, the uncontrollable  itch has started..... I spent an hour today just looking at all the small DSO objects I can have a pop at.

So far..... very happy.

 

Sean.

Edited January 13, 2020 by Craney

[Sunshine]

That is so good to hear, i always like hearing stories of others getting the scopes they wanted, i am sure you're itching to get out again, i would love to hear about your first visual session.