M51 Whirlpool Galaxy

[step_hen]

3hrs 30mins with Asi533mc and 6" StellaLyra Classical Cassegrain, at F8 using CCDT67 reducer

 

[glafnazur]

That's nice. I'm thinking of buying a 6" StellaLyra Classical Cassegrain, mainly for planetary and double stars so it's good to see a lovely DSO image using it.

[step_hen]

Thanks. It's a very good scope for lunar at native f12, haven't had much chance to try it on planets yet but that's why I bought it initially. This was mainly experimenting to see if it was useful for smaller DSO or not. The reducer (a telecompressor actually) is starting to affect the star shape at f8, so I think I'll pull it back to somewhere closer to f9 where it seems to do better. That's a x0.7 or x0.72 reduction or thereabouts. Very slow for DSO but might be useful for occasional imaging of targets beyond my smaller refractors reach, without having the issues associated with mounting a very large scope instead.