Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

The sky cleared last night and I took a few shots of M51 at a 4000mm focal length. This is a stack of 29 X 6 minute long exposures using my DLSR set to ISO 1600, on a Meade LX200 16inch scope. I'm going to save my pennies and hopefully next year get a real Cooled (CDD or CMOS) camera made for deep sky imaging. The DSLR works but there is a fair amount of noise when the image is stretched. A few other dim galaxies are also visible in the image down to around the 17th magnitude.

(Download)

tramsey Loc: Texas

WOW!! and I think that's an understatement. Beautifully done. What dslr did your use?

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

I used a canon 5D mark IV and it works well. I'm still trying to figure out how to get more of the noise out of the long exposure images.

Europa Loc: West Hills, CA

That turned out really well! A 16” scope, what mount are you using? I assume you are guiding, do you dither?

Electric Gnome Loc: Norwich UK

Just amazing, I too would be interested in your full rig info if possible.

WFG286 Loc: Herrin, IL

Beautiful! Great job!!

alberio Loc: Casa Grande AZ

There is so many good things to say about this image, but I always love seeing the surprise Galaxies surrounding the main subject.
Yesterday I succumbed to a bad case of GAS and acquired a ZWO ASI294 MC PRO with a L-eNhance filter and a ZWO ASI178MC planetary camera. I now only hope my madness results in images close to yours.

Europa Loc: West Hills, CA

Your madness will give you cloud cover

alberio Loc: Casa Grande AZ

Noooo!

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

I'm using an Astro Physic 1600 GTO mount. I was doing off axis guiding and the RMS error stayed less than 1/2 arc second on both axis for the entire session. I did dither in pixinsight but the tracking was so good it probably didn't change much (I probably should do some dithering from exposure to exposure). I need to play with noise removal before stretching the image and plan to experiment with that next.

SkyKing Loc: Thompson Ridge, NY

...this is a spectacular image...really well done...thanks for sharing the camera settings...

Europa Loc: West Hills, CA

It was a pretty big improvement in my imaging(noise) when I started to dither.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi Electric Gnome

I recently purchased a Meade LX200 ACF 16 inch scope and mounted it on an Astro Physic 1600 GTO mount.
I just finished building a new base for mount (see photo's below). I used an Omegon off axis guider with micro focus I purchased on Amazon along with a Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 for guiding. The freeware program PHD was used for guiding (also used it for polar alignment). The camera used was a canon 5DmarkIV DSLR with the ISO set to 1600. For processing I used Pixinsight, however I need to experiment with noise removal before stretching the image on my next pass at processing the image.

The new base is very heavy well over 350 lbs before the adding the equatorial head. I got tired of tripping on wires so the new base allows me to run all the wiring inside pipes on the base and used wire covers from the base to power and to the laptop. The mounting plate is made from a 16 inch diameter 1 1/2 inch thick aluminum plate with another square 12 x 12x 1 inch thick aluminum plate that holds the mounting ring.
both the tube and the mounting plate are attached with 3/4 inch bolts. (tapped threads in the base plate and extension nuts mounted in the concrete base).
I built a carriage to hold the scope in position so that I can mount it without help (see https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-641766-2.html

There are 90lbs of Olympic weight plates used for counter weights (They cost ~1/5 the amount of weights made for the mount. I made some non-marring locking brackets to hold the weights along with PVC inserts to make the weights fit the counter weight axis).

Fell free to ask questions.

Looking south at the scope

(Download)

looking northeast at scope

(Download)

power supply mounted inside base tube with fan below supply

(Download)

Steel tube mounted to concrete base

(Download)

Homemade mounting plate added to steel tube. Note switch on east side of the tube flag to turn the on/off the power supply fan).

(Download)

Wiring run through pipes on side of the tube

(Download)

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi Alberio
Once my wife gets over the shock of my telescope purchase I hope to get a real Astro camera with cooling to help eliminate the noise (probably won't be for while). This hobby can be expensive but it is so much fun. To ease the stress my wife got a really nice Baby Lock Valiant CNC 10 needle embroidering machine.

alberio Loc: Casa Grande AZ

Lucky wife, happy astronomer, good combo.