First Light with the Monster 300 PDS - M51, M82, M101 and the Fireworks Galaxy - all in one night

[powerlord]

So lovely clear night last night. I don't think seeing was the best. meteoblue didn't think so - too much movement in upper atmosphere, and 30mph winds, but mostly sheltered where the monster was.

Wow its a big boy on the mount - over 7 feet high.

Amazing, just with some rough balancing, my EQ6R-Pro handled it fine - guiding RMS stayed below 1" all night. I shot M51, M82, M101 and NGC6946. This is the first processed - M51.

I processed that first as I'd shot it with my ancient Helios 200p with no CC a few days before - albeit with my asi1600 and LRGB. So I figured it would be a good test.

To keep things simple for first light I stuck with my asi533 and UV/IR filter only. So much lower effective resolution, but 1500mm vs 1000mm. FIGHT! (as Harry Hill would say).

Here's the result from 162 mins of 180 second subs. Excuse the elongated stars. they were perfectly round all the way to the corners on the best frames, but when I stacked just them, I found I got less detail in M51 - so have stacked them all instead.

And under it, my 200p attempt reposted from a few days ago.

 

and the 200p asi1600 version:

 

Edited March 8, 2022 by powerlord

[AstroNebulee]

Just one word with the 300p.... WOW 😍

[MalcolmM]

Stunning!

Would love to see a pic of the 300p! I'm sure it looks pretty stunning too!

Malcolm

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Absolutely stunning 🙂 

Steve

[powerlord]

 

Edited March 8, 2022 by powerlord

[MalcolmM]

'Monster' is a very appropriate word! Looks fantastic!

[powerlord]

Here's M82. Since seeing has a bit suspect I tried something I've not done before - I ramped the gain up to max (300) on the asi533, and I shot 10 second subs! 300 of them to be precise. I then stacked only the 150 best ones. I figured I might get a bit of sort of lucky imaging going. So 25 mins of 10 second subs.

Here's the result.

 

[powerlord]

And the Pinwheel Galaxy. Didn't come out as well this one - only 54 mins of integration which probably didn't help. 3 minute subs.

[powerlord]

And here's the last from the night - The fireworks galaxy.

So overall, I think I can say it was a very successful first light for the monster !

[Clarkey]

Fortunately I don't have an observatory and I'm not sure I could lug that around.

Great images, especially M51. Goes to show what the extra aperture can do.