M51 - RC 6 (jLanc)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn) · Contains: IC 4277 · M 51 · NGC 5194 · NGC 5195 · Whirlpool Galaxy

Powered byPixInsight

M51 - RC 6

Revision title: Cropped by reducer value (0.75)

Powered byPixInsight

M51 - RC 6

Revision title: Cropped by reducer value (0.75)

M51 - my first image with my new RC6 setup!

Overall I've found my previous long focal length setup frustrating to say the least. I found the images to be quite soft, even with an accurate auto focus routine, and perfectly measured back focus. On top of that vignetting in the C6 is pretty bad. I believe it is because the baffle in the tube is quite narrow. I discovered this while comparing the baffle size of the RC6, which is considerably larger. The Starizona SCT corrector I used never did a great job of correcting the coma seen in the C6, so I was never really happy with it. The final straw for me was the unexpected internal reflections. I haven't seen anyone online talk about this issue with this setup, but they're bad and often too much to correct, at times streaking through your entire target. I am definitely a pixel peeper though so maybe someone with less strict requirements would be happy with the setup.

Given these findings and never being really happy with the setup for over a year, I decided to try a RC6 setup. Straight away the star edges are well defined, target detail is crisp and internal reflections are gone! Looking at examples before I bought mine, I was undecided if I would like the star spike pattern, but I actually enjoy it now! I find it so interesting to see the full rainbow spectrum on a perfectly focused, bright star. I also love how so many parts of this scope are adjustable. The primary mirror, secondary mirror, secondary distance and tilt adapter all add up to a rig you can really dial in. Mine still needs more work but the skies haven't been kind. I'm definately happy with the results I'm getting from this setup and can't wait to see with more integration time will bring on a target!

Original
Final
B

B

Title: Cropped by reducer value (0.75)

Uploaded: ...

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7318144
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M51 - RC 6

Revision title: Cropped by reducer value (0.75)

M51 - RC 6

Revision title: Cropped by reducer value (0.75)

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

B

Sky plot

Histogram

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M51 - RC 6

Revision title: Cropped by reducer value (0.75)

M51 - RC 6

Revision title: Cropped by reducer value (0.75)

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

B

Sky plot

Histogram

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

Delete this revision?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information