nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

Lots and lots of cropping going on here but had to...to see the bloody thing. I should have either added a barlow or used the 8 inch SCT at 2300mm for this but I chose the Orion Newt, F/3.9 8 inch (800mm) and at F/3.9 snatched 100 subs - clouds were pretty bad and kept 42 of the 100...and some of the 42 I kept were "iffy" but they did have signal so I counted on Pixinsight to do it's magic. I did some modest work in PS.

Mars, Saturn, and the Moon all are hidden from my imaging position otherwise I would have tried to get a Mars shot with the SCT.

Still this blows my mind, 100 subs at ISO 800 and 15 seconds - jeeeze with the Newt is just awesome. Can't wait for Andromeda to show up this fall.

(Download)

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Having done some shots of the Ring Nebula myself I can appreciate the quality of your shot even through the clouds.
Very nicely done Ed, do you know anything about running PEC on a Celestron???

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Nice work. The Ring Nebula is tiny, and 800mm with a full frame camera is a bit of a reach.

Europa Loc: West Hills, CA

VERY NICE!!!

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

I don't have a clue how to manage PEC on the AVX. When my AVX had issues, I got in the habit of using my Atlas Pro and haven't even given the AVX a chance. BUT....my Atlas Pro has a ton of backlash and this is how I try to deal with it. I guide using PhD2. After calibration, I select MANUAL from the TOOLS menu and press on first NORTH and move the mount.....and then WEST and move the mount. I restart guiding and then select the GUIDE ASSISTANT and let it run for two minutes - I check the correct backlash option - then when it is done I look over the recommendations and usually the only one I use is the BackLash adjustment one. Because I use Astrotortilla to locate my target and center - I do not do any star alignments...so I do not have the control move the mount North and West to take up the slack. That is why I use MANUAL to take up the slack.

Then I select the TRENDLINES in the graph part of PHD and watch the DEC line. If the line starts trending down - for me and my guide camera I know to select NORTH instead of AUTO...if it trends up, I select SOUTH.

My PA have been inside 1 arc minute using Polemaster so the only issues I have is blacklash. It takes a few minutes to finally get it ironed out but with 15 second exposures on my subs - time is no longer a problem. I use EQASCOM and EQMOD and they have a PEC correction process but so far I just let PhD2 get it right or nearly so.

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Thank you Ed that's a great exclamation. I usually get a fair amount out movement above and below the trend line which I believe to be backlash.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Man, that is a beautiful photograph.

gekko11 Loc: Las Cruces NM

very well done Ed ! Thanks for sharing !

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

Ed,

That is a great image of M57. Instead of cropping the image after stacking you could utilize Pixinsight's drizzle function. After calibration and registration, load all your registered files in drizzle stacked, open one frame, create a preview of the crop you want, then check region of interest and use your preview from your single open frame. I would try frame scales of either 2 or 4, never had much luck myself going over 4.

Great capture BTW,
Matthew

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

Thanks for the PI advise. Have never explored using drizzle.

Europa Loc: West Hills, CA

I would be interested in seeing the results, if you do try it out.

gekko11 Loc: Las Cruces NM

what exactly is "drizzle"? I hope its not too dumb of a question , I realize I have a great deal (everything) to learn in processing

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

http://www.stark-labs.com/craig/resources/Articles-&-Reviews/Drizzle_API.pdf
Craig

Europa Loc: West Hills, CA

Europa Loc: West Hills, CA

Good timing Craig, beat me to it.