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NGC6946 Proof of concept


tmarkuk

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Not so much a finished article as a test of several nights of DIY.

Over the last few weeks I have built a dual mount bar so I can mount my little Vixen 70mm F12.9 refractor next to the OO 250mm reflector for use as a guidescope. The next thing required was a guide camera, so I located a second hand SPC900NC and carried out an SC1 mod which went very smoothly. I also picked up a Baader MPCC.

Last night I finally got to try out my new setup and though I had a few issues I did manage to pull out some usable data. I went for NGC6946 as it was a target I just could not do anything with unguided, 2 minute exposures barely brought out the core.

tmarkuk-albums-deep-space-picture2025-ngc-9646.jpg

It's a bit noisy which won't be an issue with more exposures and more time to adjust the camera settings to my new found freedom. I used PHD guiding which seemed fine though every so often something moved or slipped and it lost track of it's guide star until I could correct it resulting in several lost exposures.

Trying to locate a guide star through a 70mm F12.9 scope onto a webcam ccd chip is more work than anything ever needs to be, I have a cheap -0.5 focal reducer on the way for that.

I kept the post processing to a minimum, and will revisit it once I have time to get more data.

8x6min exposures at ISO800

+ Darks / Flats

Canon EOS1000d Unmodified

Skywatcher 2" LP Filter

Baader MPCC

Orion Optics 250mm Europa

Vixen Sphinx SX Mount

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I have to agree with Peter....... excellent! :)

I see you kept processing to a minimum at this stage but you may wish to increase the saturation on the current image as this really does show up the detail to advantage.

This may not be to your taste but I applied Auto Color and then played with the Hue/Saturation sliders for a few minuets...... the result does,I think,give 'more depth'.

post-13495-133877380332_thumb.jpg

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This may not be to your taste but I applied Auto Color and then played with the Hue/Saturation sliders for a few minuets...... the result does,I think,give 'more depth'.

Crikey, I never knew I had it in me.

Well now I know what I'm going to be attempting to do tonight.

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