M81 and 82

[peter shah]

Ive been messing and tweaking the collimation on the scope...wished id never started.....so this was only intended as a test shot i will probably add some more data to it at some point

80mins in Luminance and 10mins each in RGB all binned 1x1

cheers peter

[coxie]

oh i like that

[moocher]

Super work Peter. If only my test shots were this good! Congrats on POTW!

Alan

[NickH]

Nice on Peter.

Been a good few nights of late

[peter shah]

thanks guys

Nice on Peter.

Been a good few nights of late

yeah and ive spent most of em collimating:rolleyes:

[NickH]

You wanna get a nice refractor mate :-)

Was out a few nights back with a VC200L, which the person who had it could not get collimated for toffee..

[peter shah]

Super work Peter. If only my test shots were this good! Congrats on POTW!

Alan

many thanks....this area is full of faint fluff so i really want to spend some hours on this;)

[MikeD]

Great shot, test or not Peter.

Looking forward to seeing it develop further.

Mike.

[James]

You mean it gets better? I really like the colour in this one.

James

[prokyon]

Great effort! The colors are very nice.

It demonstrates how much better a CCD is comparing with a 350d.

Regards

Werner

[peter shah]

here is a very badly pushed luminance channel showing up some of the integrated flux nebula i want to show

[Tim]

Ah yes, the joys of collimating a fast newt! There is a sysytem you may have heard of called the Cats Eye or something like that, I think James has used it. It looks very good but I had trouble understanding exactly what bits were required for it to work, and when I mailed the supplier about it, he confused me even more!

That flux is the devils own job from central UK, possibly easier with a mono camera, but when I tried 20+ hours on it with an 8" f4 newt and a OSC camera all I got was frustrated! Very excited to see what you can pull out though.

[peter shah]

Ah yes, the joys of collimating a fast newt! There is a sysytem you may have heard of called the Cats Eye or something like that, I think James has used it. It looks very good but I had trouble understanding exactly what bits were required for it to work, and when I mailed the supplier about it, he confused me even more!

That flux is the devils own job from central UK, possibly easier with a mono camera, but when I tried 20+ hours on it with an 8" f4 newt and a OSC camera all I got was frustrated! Very excited to see what you can pull out though.

i have a catseye auto collimator....i doesnt work with the corrector in place....thats why ASA recommend removing the corretor before collimating......i dont like the idea of collimating without a critical part of the optical setup. a barlowed laser works well, its just getting a laser collimator that holds its calibration....

[Taff]

Nice capture with you Pete' great details.Mark

[harry page]

Hi

I think another 20 or 30 hrs and you will be there

Harry

[Tim]

Ah yes, I forgot the AG8 has the corrector.

In general though, how does the AG range hold collimation once set?

[peter shah]

Ah yes, I forgot the AG8 has the corrector.

In general though, how does the AG range hold collimation once set?

It holds collimation very well, I only messed with it because I knew it was very slightly off. The last time I touched it was September. If the temperature has been pretty stable it keeps its focus too, on a few of occasions I've not had to refocus for as long as a week!! I know how unbelievable that sounds! The key thing is not to over tighten collimation screws it puts unnecessary stresses that make the scope sensitive to temperature changes, but the carbon tube and CNC machining makes a massive difference to its overall stability.

[Beyond_Vision]

Another smashing capture and process Pete, thats some test shot . Both galaxies look great set in that colourful star field

Regards

Kevin