M51 - 1st go with fastar

[MartinB]

Last night after abortive attempts at Jupiter through the grey stuff the skies cleared around midnight. So it was off to a familiar target - M51 for a quick play - expecting cloud at any second. Stayed clear until the skies started to lighten at 2.30am!

I have a whole bundle of different subs to play with but this is a first rough edit. Dead chuffed with the faint detail esp around the smaller galaxy - looks like clumsy use of the lassoo tool but it isn't!!! It's real!

NS8 with fastar. 40 x50 sec subs 10x60 secs and 10x30 secs for the cores. Have some RGBs but need to spend some time with these.

Will do a little write up on the fastar but just to say it's the dogs B's and I'm smiling from ear to ear.

[CELESCOPE]

Great first go at the fastar Martin, i knew you would like it , and it certainly changed my imaging BIG TIME , shall look foward to more from you now ,thats a good shot nicely detailed mate , but i could not resist a play ehehheh , keep them coming

Rog

[OXO]

Well Done Martin thats a very nice Image you have captured

[Grant]

Stunning image that Martin, really nice to see, keep 'em coming!!!

[Mick.G.]

Nice one Martin.

Glad your enjoying the fastar.

Mick

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Will do a little write up on the fastar but just to say it's the dogs B's and I'm smiling from ear to ear.

Not surprised, it's a cracker. Lovely image with lots of detail. Keep 'em coming chaps, I like these pictures.

Captain Chaos

[geppetto]

Ooooohh very nice capture 8)

Dont know what a fastar is and I'm not going to find out

because then I'll probably want one

More of the same if you please

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

For that very reason I'm pretending that I don't know what one is.

Captain Chaos

[CELESCOPE]

as Martin will explain , the fast star is another lens , this is used on the celestron gps 8 , by removing the secondary mirror and replacing it with the fastar lens turns the scope into a very fast imaging device , knocking it down from an F10 ratio to F1.95 , this enables image data to be gathered in a very short time , for example a 40 min exposure would be like equal to possibly 2 mins or longer, it also gives a wider field of view making large nebula a dream to capture , down side is it is mainly only useful for the Atik 2hs or something similar , starlight xpress would be ok as well , although it does seem the fastar is,nt very forgiving in many repects to what you use with it , but most of my imaging was using the faststar , so i think it speaks for itself really ,

A fantastic bit of equipment .

Rog

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

HOW MUCH!!

Not listening! Not listening!

Captain Chaos