IC1396

skywatcher Esprit 80ED, T3i modded, HEQ5, SSAG guiding, good seeing but a lot of wind (threw away 40% of my subs), PI magic

Good Evening!

Nice details captured, especially in the trunk. A pity you had to erase so much lights.

cheers,

--
Michael S.
EUROPE; dpreview since 2001
NIKON NPS Member
(check equipment via profile)

Thanks Michael.

At a focal length probably around 300mm (Skywatcher does not provide details about its field flattener!!!) I think my equipment performs well (at least the scope, but may be not the camera). And I've been putting some effort to improve my guiding. Still a long way to go, but things are improving.

This wind business was really bad luck. I drove more than two hours to a nice place with a clearly much better sky than my usual place (the milky way was not a faint thing) and the seeing was good.

And that damn wind was shaking my equipment :-x:-x:-x.

I went through my lights one by one, threw away the obvious disasters and then fed the result to PI. PI rejected another batch (RANSAC: Could not find a pair of identical stars, or something like this).

I first looked at the log. Thought the thing was a total loss and then, wow, a decent basis came out of STF :-O:-O

PI is magic.

best regards

P.

I guess my artistic emotionnal quotient is close to 0.

Brueghel said:

Thanks Michael.

At a focal length probably around 300mm (Skywatcher does not provide details about its field flattener!!!) I think my equipment performs well (at least the scope, but may be not the camera). And I've been putting some effort to improve my guiding. Still a long way to go, but things are improving.

Click to expand...

Good Evening!

As far as I do know, rechecked it, the flattener for the SW Esprit 80/400 is a 0.79x one, so you should have 316mm.
;-)

And I do wish you better luck next time after you've driven out so far.

best regards,

Wow. My dealer did not have this info and I could not find a reliable source, just guesses around 0.75 to 0.80

You have access to the inner sanctum of Skywatcher ?

Thanks a lot !!!

I like it! Excellent details. Did you do a DBE with the linear image?

Cheers

chris

Brueghel said:

Wow. My dealer did not have this info and I could not find a reliable source, just guesses around 0.75 to 0.80

You have access to the inner sanctum of Skywatcher ?

Thanks a lot !!!

Click to expand...

Good Morning!

*lol* - not really, but we do have a dealer here in Austria whose owners are hardcore astrophotographers on their own and on the website according the ESPRIT 80 is written:

"Reducer: The Esprit80 is compatible with 0,79x TSRed279 up to APS-C format."

So that's the reducer that actually fits on the ESPRIT 80. So I assumed, as there is not a broad selection of reducers out there for that scope, you might have that one."
;-)

Ayyy...

Maybe not the same as mine. Mine has nothing written on it, is deep black and in 2 parts

but surely it cant be very far!

BTW: I dont understand german but I use mine on an APS-C but I tried, during the day, a Canon 6D with the flattener installed. To my surprise, the 6D's image fit in nicely the scope's circle of vision (correct term?). But I am not knowledgeable enough to compute the implication...

Thanks a lot (as usual )

p.

Brueghel said:

Ayyy...

Maybe not the same as mine. Mine has nothing written on it, is deep black and in 2 parts

but surely it cant be very far!

BTW: I dont understand german but I use mine on an APS-C but I tried, during the day, a Canon 6D with the flattener installed. To my surprise, the 6D's image fit in nicely the scope's circle of vision (correct term?). But I am not knowledgeable enough to compute the implication...

Thanks a lot (as usual )

p.

Click to expand...

Good Evening!

Yeah...it may not be exactly the same but for sure close.

And according the sensor diamter - Skywatcher itself advertises the Esprit 80 as being used up to APS-C format. So, you may use full frame but will have to deal with the light fall-off on the border, especially if you do use a reducer too, which adds to the fall off.

best regards,

That is an extremely difficult target, well done !!!

swimswithtrout said:

That is an extremely difficult target, well done !!!

Click to expand...

Hey, thanks a lot !

I drove to a nice place, 2 hours from Montreal (north east of the city). The sky was nice. For once, the Milky Way meant something other than some washed out white stuff.

And IC1396 is +- north-east, ie pointing away from the light pollution.

I think that helped a lot.

But i was really worried that the whole night would be a loss because of the wind and the really wild dance or the PHD graph.... Threw away many subs. But then PI did its magic thing.

Ah ! I am just starting to do drift alignment. Well, actually I am now aware of how bad my alignment is :-x and I am trying to do something about it :-D That may have helped. What is has definitely demonstrated to me is that my mount (HEQ5 Pro) is OK but extremely hard to fine tune. Those RA things are difficult beasts... About time I get a Paramount thing....

Midway through the night I remembered I had never shot the Milky Way (because oF LP). So took out my photo tripod, my good old D7100 at 1 in the morning.

And here is my first attempt at the MW. One 1mn shot at 3200 ISO I think. Nikon D7100 and the 10-24mm lens, at 10mm, F4 I think.

Frankly I like it even though I believe it is terrible (star trails etc)

mac01 said:

I like it! Excellent details. Did you do a DBE with the linear image?

Cheers

chris

Click to expand...

11 months later ... (sorry I just noticed your msg !!!!)

yes DBE is one of my first steps...