QHY8L First Light

Here is my first attempt with my new QHY8L ccd camera. I am very impressed with this camera.

Well the moon did cause a little bit of a problem last night but I think the Baader Neodymium filter helped a lot here.

 

Right technical details

 

Focused using one of my Bahtinov masks (deh........ of course)

20x 120s Lights

10x Darks

0x Bias

0x Flats

QHY8L OSC cooled to -15C

Williams Optics Megrez 102 at f7

EQ6 Pro mount unguided

4 June 2012

It's not brilliant but the moon was interfering, it was my very first go with this camera, but still I am very pleased with the result. Longer and more exposures needed and flats would be of benefit too. Also I had to use a 2" extension tube as I couldn't reach focus with the camera straight in the focuser.

Rosette revisited

Hi all another go at the Rosette Nebula

M42 and Rosette

Both of these taken using a Baader UHC-S filter instead of th Astronomik CLS clip filter.

M42 16 Jan 2012

Hi All, what a difference shooting in RAW and taking darks can make!

M42

Sadly due to meridian flip I got this one misaligned. Taken same night as the Horsehead below, also only jpegs.

12x 3.5 mins at ISO 800

Still some nice detail there though.

Horsehead and Flame

Here is my latest attempt at these. Unfortunately my camera somehow got turned on to jpeg only mode so no raws taken and my battery failed before I could do any dark frames.

30x 3.5 mins at ISO 800

Goodbye to one of my scopes

Sadly the time has come for me and my Celestron C9.25 to part company.
I needed to sell it to raise a bit of capital to replace my ancient and very nearly dead central heating system.
I had hoped it would last out until the spring, but remembering how cold it got last winter, I just can't take that chance. I have only had it 18 months and have obtained some really good photos of Jupiter and Saturn, but I also want to concentrate with my APO refractors and my newly acquired Atik mono 16 IC-S ccd and what with the limited seeing we've had lately the planets offer a too easy target over DSOs.

So it's goodbye C9.25!