Neither really does it for me, but this is an amazing object. Another planetary nebula, and one with so much to see. It looks small, but in fact it’s huge, dwarfing our entire solar system to the point where I don’t think you’d be able to see it at all on this scale.
This image really needs a lot more exposure time, but for that I really need guiding.
I didn’t really believe it would be possible to image this with my setup as it is, but I decided I’d give it a go anyhow. Planetary nebulae are such fascinating objects. Perhaps what lies in wait for our own Sun in billions of years time?
I think I’ve about done this to death now. I’ve decided that to get better results than this I firstly need to get very good polar alignment which really means a pier, which probably means an observatory. That should allow me fewer rejected frames and longer exposures. Guiding might be good, too. That’s one to work on soon. I always intended to have a finder-guider rig on the Mak. Because of the alignment issues some of the stars have turned a nasty shade of magenta in the bottom right of this image. I’ve learnt a great deal from imaging the clusters around Hercules and Lyra this year, so whilst this may not be the best image I’m far from unhappy.
I was asked about my collimation cap recently, having referred to it a couple of times. It’s really very basic, but I just happened to find that it fitted over the rear thread of the baffle tube on my Mak rather nicely, so I drilled a small hole in the middle and used it for initial collimation of the scope and checking that the baffle tube was central. Here it is:
I fact the hole is probably too large. I reckon it could easily be taken down to 1mm diameter. I shan’t be looking for another however as I recently found a 1.25″ Astro Engineering plug, which reveals something quite useful when the sticky plastic logo is levered off:
The hole isn’t quite as small as I wanted, but the depth of the plug should make up for that.
These tiny little chaps appear to be all over the place in our garden. I assume they’ve left one of the nearby ponds and are looking for new homes. We’ve had to rescue quite a few from the patio to avoid them being trodden on or attacked by birds.
It’s taken me a while to get used to all the new software for controlling my HEQ5, the new imaging applications, filter wheel control and so on, but here’s my first attempt at an RGB image of M13 using the 314L+ and 127 Mak. I think it’s fair to say that it blows my DSLR images into the weeds…
A revisit of one of my earlier images, but enhanced to show the prominences. In some ways they don’t look like much, until you consider that they dwarf our entire planet.
My last image of Saturn for this apparition. I’ve not done one for some time, but it just happened to be in a convenient place for imaging and I didn’t particularly have any other plans this night, so thought I’d give it one last try. This with the 127 Mak and ASI120MC on the HEQ5.
Having moved to a new mount I thought I’d have a try with a new camera as well. Ok, so not quite a new camera. I’ve had it for a while because I picked it up at a discount when it happened to be available. So, here are some mono attempts at Messiers 13, 92 and 3 with my Atik 314L+. Even though they have no colour and the focus isn’t quite there the difference between them and the DSLR is quite significant. I’m looking forward to working with this camera more.
Another couple of tries with the PST, taken in France on holiday. These ones I’ve managed to do as mosaics and add false colour. I’m still not very happy with them. A good deal of practice is going to be required I think.
On the positive side it’s very nice to see the proms, even if they don’t do the view through the eyepiece justice.
