First image in months: test shot of M51

by Richard Crisp

After an eternity of rain, last night I managed to finally take an image again. This time I used the Stinger450 18" f/12.6 classical cassegrain with a focal reducer: the one built into the Lumicon Giant Easy Guider.

The last time I tried to use that GEG, I was unable to get my guider camera to come to focus so I bought a small focal reducer for its 1.25" nosepiece and that let me get the system to come to focus.

The image was processed without the benefit of a proper flat field and with very few darks, so it has an odd halo around the galaxy and the background is noisier than it will be with the right darks.

The stars aren't perfectly round either and I have a few things to sort out that could explain that. But it is great to be shooting images again, even if it is debugging time.

here's a quick look-see at what the 18" cass will do at approximately f/8.2 with a FingerLakes CM10 camera. This is 9 x 10 minutes of luminance.

http://www.narrowbandimaging.com/images/m51_lum_9x10min_cm10_mk1sn2_geg.jpg

Posted on sf-bay-tac Apr 18, 2006 10:15:01 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.4 Apr 18, 2006 17:19:43 PT

Observing Reports	Observing Sites	GSSP 2010, July 10 - 14 Frosty Acres Ranch Adin, CA OMG! Its full of stars. Golden State Star Party	Join Mailing List	Mailing List Archives
Current Observing Intents Click here for more details.