What an awesome object. My 1st object shot with 1800mm focal length. This is why I bought the VISAC. Yes, one evening is not enough exposure time. I will have to see what the weather brings in the next few weeks.
I am really happy with this result, knowing that I will be able to do better in future. Why? Because my focus is not optimal, a fitting new part to use the Pegasus Focuser is already on the way. And my new guiding cam, the QHY 462 is not doing what I want. I am still not sure if it might be a driver problem in INDI or if the hardware is broken. Therefor I used my old Omegon 1200b guiding cam on my new 240mm guidescope.
Picture in full resolution on Flickr:
Old vs. new Workflow
Technical overview
| Telescope | VIXEN VISAC VC200L |
| Focal Length | 1800mm |
| Aperture ratio | 9 |
| Erecting Lense / Reducer | – |
| Filter | – |
| Mount | Skywatcher HEQ-5 |
| Goto-Control | EKOS |
| Mount Control | INDI |
| Guiding Scope Focal Length | 240mm |
| Guiding Camera | Omegon 1200b mono |
| Guiding Software | EKOS, INDI |
| Dithering | 3 pixel |
| Camera | CANON EOS M100(a) |
| Method | focal projection |
| Camera angle | -90° |
| Camera Control | EKOS, INDI, Gphoto2 |
| Motor-Focus | – |
| Photography Date | 09/22/2022 |
| Exposure-Time Lights | 30x300s |
| Correction frames | FLATS, BIASES |
| Sensitivity | ISO 400 |
| Processing Date | 09/24/2022 |
| Reprocessing Date | 01/11/2024 |
| Stacking, Integration | PixInsight |
| Processing Software | PixInsight |
| Image Editing | Affinity Photo |
| Reprocessing Software | PixInsight |
| Capture Place | Koblenz, Germany |
| Lightpollution | Bortle 5 |
| Scattered light | strong |
