The Needle Galaxy

[Jockinireland]

I have been moaning on and on about the coma in the old LX200 GPS and how it is not fixed by the meade 4000 F 6.3 Reducer. Then I read an article which suggested that modern refractor FF/FR's may work better than the specific Meade FF/FR. So I stuck the SW 80 ED 0.85 FF/FR on the Big Blue Trash Can last night and thought "in for a penny...." So bolted the ASI2600mc on and sent it off to find the Needle. Now its giving me 1700mm FL (although plate solve says 1900), and with the 2600 mc that comes to a image scale of around 0.4". So I binned it 2 X 2. I got this...

about 4 hours of 120s (gain100, Offset 50, Bin 2x2

Now, the stars are still not the best but I think its now down to seeing and guiding because the horrible U shaped coma in the corners and the smearing as you come in further is pretty much gone. This is a slight crop (awful gradient) but not near as tight as needed when I use the 0.63. I am both astonished (the received wisdom is that refractor reducers will simply not work with SCT) and delighted. With some better seeing and some tweaking on the setup for better guiding I think this is going to work!



full res here...


C & C please.

[Juno16]

Great image David! Man, you are on a tear!

Great find too!

[sdbodin]

Looks good,
Note to self, many times, don't trust internet 'wisdom'. Experiment yourself.

Steve

[Jockinireland]

Great image David! Man, you are on a tear!

Great find too!

Thanks Jim - although "On the tear" has a rather different and somewhat dubious connotation here in the West of Ireland!!

But yes - more images in the last 7 days than the previous 3 months!

[Juno16]

Great image David! Man, you are on a tear!

Great find too!

Thanks Jim - although "On the tear" has a rather different and somewhat dubious connotation here in the West of Ireland!!

But yes - more images in the last 7 days than the previous 3 months!

Not sure if I want to know what it means!

Lets just say that you have been getting some great imaging in. Good for you! Time well spent to say the least! You have several excellent images to show for your good sky fortune.

[messier 111]

wow great image , thx

[Larry 1969]

Great take on a tiny target!

Larry

[Ylem]

That awesome
Thanks for sharing David

[Gmetric]

That's a beauty! The details in the galaxy are superb, love it

[Ruud]

It's a marvellous image. Thanks for sharing!

[ic_1101]

Beautiful closeup! Nicely done and thx for sharing.

[MariusD69]

Wonderful image! Great job!

[BABOafrica]

What an unusual tale... Anyway, congrats on getting rid of that coma!

And it's a beautiful image of the Spindle.

BABO

[Gordon]

Congratulations David on having your image selected as todays TSS APOD!!

app.php/article/4-13-2021-tss-astrophot ... of-the-day

[AstroBee]

Congrats on the TSS APOD! Awesome image!

[Makuser]

Hi David. A great Needle Galaxy image. Excellent contrast and fine details in your capture. And the full resolution version on the astrobin site (with annotaion) is fantastic. Thanks for sharing your work on here David, and congratulations on winning the TSS APOD Award today.

[helicon]

Hi David and congrats on winning the APOD for today. Great image! I also enjoy this one at the eyepiece - the length and "needle" appearance make it very distinctive...

[kt4hx]

Well done David, and congrats on the APOD. This is an outstanding galaxy and you captured it beautifully.