The Small Magellanic Cloud... (with and without a teleconverter)

[MarsG76]

Hi All,

I completed a little experiment on the Small Magellanic Cloud, NGC292. I chose this object because it's not a popular object among astrophotographers and it's also large enough for this experiment using my Sigma EX 150mm prime lens with and without the Sigma 2X Teleconverter.
I used 3 hours and 33 minutes worth of subs for luminance at 150mm and 4 hours and 30 minutes of subs at 300mm, with the teleconverter.
RGB color data was exposed at 150mm, aligned and used to colorise both luminance channels.

The glass in both the lens and the teleconverter is Japanese made, and they're both "EX" graded, meaning its their highest quality... my guiding was at around 1"/px.. well below the pixel resolution of the setup on the QHY268M at BIN1x1... being 2.5" & 5"/pixel.

Unfortunately the 2X teleconverter has distorted the stars into a "epsilon" or "E" shape, even in the middle of the frame...

...where as the stars are round in all subs without the converter... so I don't think that using a teleconverter is a good idea to use for astrophotography... at least not this teleconverter.

Thanks for looking... now I'll target Saturn at earliest possibility.

Clear Skies,

MG

 

[Swoop1]

Both very nice images Mariusz.

I prefer to no teleconverter image as the larger field gives a more pleasing view and context.

[MarsG76]

1 minute ago, Swoop1 said:

Both very nice images Mariusz.

I prefer to no teleconverter image as the larger field gives a more pleasing view and context.

I agree with you on the wider being more aesthetic... There are a few nebulae within that I'd like to target at 1280 and 2032mm focal length in the future...

 

[simmo39]

Think I like the widefield shot better, but both are good  to my eyes.