NGC7000 - Redcat 51 first light

[david_taurus83]

What an absolute gem of a little scope! I really wish I had held out last year when I ordered one of these instead of cancelling due to the long waiting list! Browsing FLO the other week and I noticed there was a dozen or so back on stock. I let the cogs tick for a day or so while I thought about it and when I checked again they were down to 3! Nope, not missing out this time. Ordered straight away on Sunday and they were sold out again that evening!

Anyway, I've paired this to my 6D and mounted to my iOptron Skyguider Pro. Framing, imaging and guiding controlled with a Stellarmate. I think I have finally gotten together a decent portable setup. Just powered by batteries and a USB powerbank. No need for heavy 12v batteries.

Note to Redcat owners. I'm aware that some of these are reported to not deliver the promised flat field. Its worth checking the tilt adapter before first use. I measured mine with a digital caliper and it wasn't exactly flush so I adjusted all 4 push pull screws to be within 0.05mm of tolerance. The results are very good. How glad was I when I checked over that first sub to see round stars across the image! Not perfect to the sides and corners but considering the 6D has that big full frame sensor I think it performs very well.

Despite no astro darkness and only 2 hours of twilight to play with from midnight last night I nestled this little baby in the corner of the garden between the old shed and back wall to hide it away from the woeful streetlights that incessantly plague me.

This is the full frame image. Only the tiniest of edge crop to remove stacking artifacts.

Redcat 51 - Canon 6D - Skyguider Pro - IDAS D2 LPS

40 x 180s at ISO 1600

Processed in Pixinsight. Final tweaks in Photoshop.

 

[callisto]

Very nice image 👍....do you use ipolar or just the stock polarscope?

 

Mark

[david_taurus83]

28 minutes ago, callisto said:

Very nice image 👍....do you use ipolar or just the stock polarscope?

 

Mark

Thank you Mark! Just the stock polar scope to rough align. I tried the polar align routine in Stellarmate last night for the first time. Got it down to 1' accuracy though I think with the stock wedge it gets knocked out a bit after focusing and framing the image. Perhaps the WO wedge is worth the upgrade? It still guided fine with ST4 last night 🙂

[vineyard]

Congrats - its always nice when a setup comes together (& that's a lovely first image).  The WO wedge upgrade is definitely worth it - in another league performance & convenience wise, I hummed & hawed about that but no regrets whatsoever (they do come up 2nd hand every so often).

If only iOptron could come out w a version of the Skyguider Pro that had motors on both axes so that go-to became possible...

[callisto]

1 hour ago, david_taurus83 said:

Thank you Mark! Just the stock polar scope to rough align. I tried the polar align routine in Stellarmate last night for the first time. Got it down to 1' accuracy though I think with the stock wedge it gets knocked out a bit after focusing and framing the image. Perhaps the WO wedge is worth the upgrade? It still guided fine with ST4 last night 🙂

Ahh ok...Just asking because I've ordered the ipolar for my SGP....and I also upgraded to the WO wedge and it's a total different ballgame using that instead of the stock one 

 

Mark

[geeklee]

Great first light @david_taurus83 What a cracking FOV the full frame Canon gives with the RedCat.

Good tip on the tilt adapter.  Is the framing with a SGP a manual exercise?  i guess I'm getting at reframing the same target another night or finding a particular frame you like.  With the full frame you've got more options of course!

[david_taurus83]

40 minutes ago, geeklee said:

Great first light @david_taurus83 What a cracking FOV the full frame Canon gives with the RedCat.

Good tip on the tilt adapter.  Is the framing with a SGP a manual exercise?  i guess I'm getting at reframing the same target another night or finding a particular frame you like.  With the full frame you've got more options of course!

Thanks! I'm really pleased with how this has came out!

Yes all manual. But it's made easy with the Stellarmate/Kstars. I use VNC on my phone to control Kstars/Ekos. When you solve an image it shows the FOV and orientation of the framing. RA is easy as you just hold down the slew buttons for a few seconds to get into position. The Dec is moved manually by hand. It takes a few minutes at most.

[geeklee]

6 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

When you solve an image it shows the FOV and orientation of the framing. RA is easy as you just hold down the slew buttons for a few seconds to get into position. The Dec is moved manually by hand. It takes a few minutes at most.

Thanks David - that makes sense.  Great use of platesolving even though you can't utilise GoTo - I think that was a missing piece of the puzzle in my head of using one of these types of mount.  The other piece was that the DEC had to be moved manually (I clearly hadn't thought deeply enough about how to use these types of mount!)

Thanks again for the info.