David Koslicki:
Welcome Bob! Glad to join you in this crazy hobby! I've been looking at a few of your images and haven't seen many like them before! Like that image of Sirus; those are some pretty cool diffraction spikes (processing, or part of the setup)? Are you running mainly one setup, or have multiple rigs?
How do you like the RedCat 71? I have the RedCat (my first astrophoto scope actually) and have enjoyed it quite a bit, save for the focuser which has gotten stiffer and stiffer with age.
Thanks for the warm welcome. The image of Sirus was after I had used the built in Bahtinov mask on the Redccat. I was expect to see crisp clear refraction spikes, however I think what we are seeing is cloud moving during the imaging time. It was a very cloudy day that night, and I just wanted to image something.
I do like the redcat, I am still learning what filers I need and exposure time, gain settings and all the fun stuff that comes with the hobby. I suspect I will get another scope soon, as I do feel the redcat is lacking on magnification. Focusing it is easy, very steady scope, and for a beginner, I did not need to worry about back focus, and other adjusters that one needs with other setups. For the mount I selected the EQ6R, I am very happy that I did, as it keeps things very well centered with guide scope an PEC turned on.
I am very pleased with my setup, and had some good help from people on the CN forums.
Very steady scope, the one down side for me was the built in polar scope, installed wrong from factory, had to adjust and use. In the end I made life simple and purchased the ipolar scope, what a difference, I can now get aligned in about 1 min, and off running where before it was not so easy.
Right now, I am struggling with filters and how to process and combine the data, it is driving me mad, thanks for the note, was refreshing.
I can not seem to figure out how to get my OIII data processed as color so I can extract the channels. I get a very fantastic nebula shape that is grey scale.
Well back to trying to solve. Your photo's are fantastic, I hope one day I can capture that type of detail.
