M1 Ha_OIII_OIII

[Ant]

First clear useable night for me since pretty much Kelling in September.

I also have the C925 with F6.3 reducer, so this is really a first light for me.

I really like the C925, but really dislike the focuser - there is almost no movement when focuser so the C925 does seem to suffer in the same way as other SCT's that I've read about (or maybe I'm lucky).

It's the not knowing for sure if your focusing in or out, make trying to achieve focus with two camera's at the same time far more complicated.

Anyway, I focused both camera well (or so I thought) on the moon and moved over to my target for the night (M1).

I slewed to Zeta Tauri, centred the star in the FOV and synced in SN. Moving up to where M1 should be - NOTHING... After about 30 minutes of this I started to get annoyed.

Back in doors to spend some time with Jamie, played Call of Duty for a little while and got completely humiliated

Then it suddenly dawned on me - I had the wrong star I was syncing on Elnath (the other horn). 90 seconds later and I had M1 on the screen!

I've not used the C925 before and was a little concerned that the HEQ5 wouldn't be up to the challenge, and to be honest it's right at the very top of what it can do. If I had the money I would change to a EQ6.

But it did OK.

PHD to start with was a little ropey, the graph looked awful - I was posting up the OSC index and RMS on twitter, but this did seem to improve as the evening went on.

Anyway... managed to get 1hr 40 minutes of 5 minute subs in Ha and the same in OIII.

I've combined them in PS to give a false colour image

Red = Ha

Green = OIII

Blue = OIII

I think that the Ha subs were a little soft, and there is a lot of noise in these images as well - not sure about why though.

Polar alignment was rough and thinking back I do not think that I balanced the scope that well...

This has been reduced a little in size and converted to JPG.

Cheers

Ant

[barkis]

Never mind the noise, the Crab itself is a corker Ant.

Besides, it must have been great just to be out there.

Ron.

[Ant]

Thanks Ron, yeah it was lovely to be out again.

When things start to work OK the weeks or months of waiting seem a distant memory!

Lots of things to work on - might have a go at focusing the OAG better tonight, I have to be up early tomorrow so cannot really do any serious imaging!

Ant

[martin_h]

Had a go at removing some of the noise...

[Taff]

Hi Ant' very nice great capture of M1.Mark

[R Fisher]

Super image, focussing looks good despite your problems. NB filters really show up the structure in this object. Not easy to capture with a SCT even with a reducer. Sometimes have a go with my old C11 @ F6.3 on this but it is a real challange.

Nice one.

[jgs001]

Nice one Ant, I recall your problems last night... the detail in the crab is great. I didn't think the HEQ5 was beefy enough to handle a C9.25...

[Whippy]

Congrats mate, I was wondering if the HEQ5 would mangae it, but it does so onwards and upwards!

Tony..