First Light New Astro Rig NGC 6744 Pavo Galaxy

[Startrek]

After 5 months I’ve finally completed building and commissioning my new Astro rig for my NexDome

10” f5 Klaus Helmerich Carbon Fibre Newtonian Reflector
Skywatcher EQ8-R Pro Mount

First light target NGC 6744 Spiral face on Galaxy in Pavo
Magnitude 8.6
Southern Hemisphere Skies
Bortle 3/4
No moon
Clear night , Seeing average
ZWOASI2600MC cooled to -10C , Gain 0 HDR
TS GPU coma corrector
42 x 5 min dithered guided subs
40 x Flats
60 x Bias
EQMOD, Stellarium and APT
PHD2 Multistar guiding ( 0.60 to 0.70 arc sec total)
Stacked in DSS
Processed in Startools V1.7 OSC Linear data set

Comments always welcome
Thanks

[Stefan B]

That looks like a dream rig, Martin! It certainly comes close to my dream rig...it appears like an adult version of my own EQ6-R/6'' f5 Newtonian setup The mount should have no problems with carrying the OTA, especially since you exchanged the metal tube with a carbon one. Is that because of the weight or because of less focus drift? I guess the EQ8-R wouldn't have problems with the metal tube either, right?

Your first light looks awesome I didn't know this southern hemisphere galaxy but I think you greatly recorded it's main characteristics with the central bar and the fluffy arms. The only thing I noticed is that the stars show a bit of color aberration. They appear rather blue in the upper right and rather red in the lower left. Quite unusual for a OSC image from a Newtonian telescope. Was this DSO low on the horizon for you? Maybe you can fix it with DSS' option for alignment of RGB channels?

Best regards
Stefan

[Startrek]

Hi Stefan,
Thank you
This rig is a quantum leap compared to my existing EQ6-R and 6” and 8” metal tube newts
The 10” is a real light bucket that’s for sure
The Ra and Dec bearings on the EQ8-R are so smooth and precise when balancing
The mount is a huge solid heavy beast at 50 kg payload capacity whereas the EQ6-R is 20kg , huge difference
I chose a carbon fibre for this big OTA due to thermal stability and physical stability/ flexure etc …
I had to add some weight on the front end to balance in Dec as these CF tubes are so light.
In regards to colour , Startools recommends to switch off any background colour calibration in DSS however I may have left this on. I might restack and re process and have another review
Thanks for commenting

Clear Skies
Martin

[Mike in Rancho]

Golly.

Congrats on the new rig, that is some robust stuff you got there.

And of course a great image. Good reach on that thing. What a bucket!

I searched for 6744 on Stellarium and it told me "this object never rises." So I had to vanish the ground in order to see it.

Is the Klaus Hemerich an actual telescope, or the carbon tube that is hosting something else, like Orion or SW parts?

Enjoy!

[Startrek]

Thanks Mike ,
Appreciate your comments
NGC 6744 is a Southern Hemisphere object
The 10” is a quantum leap from my 8” and 6” newts as far as light gathering power , I noticed straight away after looking at a sub
Klaus Helmerich is a small Carbon Fibre manufacturer in Germany. They make various products not just telescope tubes. I purchased my 10” from KH through my local supplier in Australia and it comes pre drilled for your specific brand parts. KH sell to TS Optics and a host of other telescope suppliers. I purchased GSO parts separately ( mirrors , spider vane , focuser etc… ) and built the OTA myself
It all fitted together perfectly and achieved focus with my new TS Optics GPU coma corrector which was my biggest concern.
The mount is a monster and the bearings in the Ra and Dec axis are so smooth like a hot knife through butter
Dec backlash is a known problem with these big mounts but I knew about that already. I’m going balance the rig and get Ra stable and look at Dec backlash later ( I’m hesitant to fiddle with the worm gear at this stage )
The mount guided fairly stable on this particular night with no big Dec or Ra excursions but I need quite a few nights in different conditions to test it all out

Thanks again
Martin

[decay]

Martin, I would have to lie saying I’m not jealous. Congratulations to your new rig! And its great, that you built it yourself.

Before I read your last post, I wondered about “Klaus Helmerich”. This sounds so obviously German, so I searched for that name and I found this website:

http://www.klaushelmi.de/home.html

You will have to use Google translate to understand it. They must have found a specific market opportunity with their products to survive and to sell their products all around the world. Most smaller producer and other small enterprises in Germany have problems to survive these days. Competitors from the Far East are far to cheap …

Regarding your image: As every time, I don’t know, what to say. It simply looks great. And since there’s nothing more to say about your image, maybe a word about the target: This galaxy has eye-catching spiral formations, unlike most of the other well known galaxies. One fine day I will take my scope and visit the southern skies …

Best regards, Dietmar.

Edit: removed two comments that might have been misinterpreted. Sorry.

[fmeireso]

Very impressive and beautifull image! I really like the color and details.

[Startrek]

Thank you all for your comments
Much appreciated

Martin