My ultrawide field rig featuring the North America Nebula NGC7000

[TerryMcK]

I finally got my ultra wide field rig working. Essentially it is an astro modded Canon EOS400D that has served me well since around 2008 and is still going strong. To this is fitted an EF 50mm f1.8 STM prime focus lens.

As you may know STM lenses need power from the camera to change focus so they can't be mounted easily to a dedicated astronomy camera unless you can supply power to the contacts. So I stuck with the DSLR for this set of images.

• Shutter release is with a remote shutter release on a timer.
• The camera was fitted to the HEQ5 with a vixen bar and ballmount.
• There is also a lens hood fitted to the lens - not shown in the photo.
• A dew strip is fixed to the lens hood.
• The filter used for this shot was the IDAS D2 48mm (2") screw on filter. This was fitted using a 49mm to 48mm adapter. 

I wanted to show NGC7000 in context for a few friends showing its apparent size in the sky relative to the moon. So after some careful focusing with a Bahtinov mask fitted to a home made mounting ring I set the rig going. On the night of 09-08-2020 there was intermittent cloud but the results I had the next morning were 67 x 2 minute subs.

These were processed first of all in Deep Sky Stacker as I was having problems with Astro Pixel Processor. Then worked on with a combination of Photoshop, PixInsight, Starnet and Topaz DeNoise AI. There is a little elongation to some stars but these were unguided 2 minute subs. I also stopped the lens down to f2.8 as there can be artefacts when set faster with this particular lens.

 

 I had also dug out an older set of NGC7000 taken 09/12/2019 using the same camera but fitted to my William Optics Zenithstar 73 with flattener. These too were processed using the same software as above and I think the addition of PixInsight into my workflow has been beneficial (IMHO). Although looking at the below photo in retrospect it would have been nicer to get a little more "Gulf of Mexico".

 

I have made a bracket so that I can fit the wide field rig atop my William Optics Zenithstar 103. It adds a little weight of course but is still well within the imaging capacity of the Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro mount. I will be using it to do piggy back shots on future projects. The bracket is made from some 40 x 20 x 2 wall thickness aluminium rectangular tubing. I had to move the William Optics carrying handle over a little - fortunately WO provide several tapped holes in the tube rings for such eventualities - and fitted the ball head as shown below. Then the bracket was finished with some metallic red automotive spray paint called "Ferrari Red Pearl" which satisfies my OCD to have everything matching on the scopes!

With the Canon camera onboard it is surprisingly well balanced side by side. All things considered the old Canon 10megapixel APC sensor still produces good work.

Edited August 12, 2020 by TerryMcK

[JeremyS]

Fantastic setup and resul!

[tooth_dr]

Very nice setup.  Makes my widefield image positively zoomed in 😂