M66 - RC first light (Simon)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Leo (Leo) · Contains: Leo Triplet · M 66 · NGC 3627

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M66 - RC first light

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M66 - RC first light

As many of you know, I have had more difficulties than I would have liked with the f12-f9 reducer arrangement with the Classic Cassegrain, with regards to imaging small galaxies and so forth. The roundedness of the stars has been very hit and miss, and frustrating. As that is so I am now most likely to use it for planetary and lunar imaging only. And so, I began to toy with the idea of getting a Ritchey Chretien scope recently. I had every intention of never spending another penny on astrophotography - he says! I did some research and decided upon a TS-Optics f8, 8" scope, at 1632mm in focal length, which supports my intentions and field of view well. I had just placed the order and whilst looking up its weight, I discovered that one was available second hand - very rare to come up! Indeed, it was the scope, plus an actual TS-Optics collimator, a focuser tilt adjuster, extension focuser tubes, dew shield and dew heater - it came it at way under half the price of what that lot would have cost new, and a lot less than a new tube on its own as well. The optics are pristine and none of it looks like it has ever been been used - I had to get this! So I cancelled the order and got the second hand one! I am blessed.

I have only had about an hour and a half's gap in the weather in the last three weeks and because the scope was new, its balance on the mount wasn't correct and there are other various things like that, that I need to sort. But I am pleased with the result, even so! 47 subs and 2 minutes long each - 1 hour and 34 minutes, in all, and taken in the bad part of my sky. Cheers everyone...

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	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
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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.
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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	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7399893
PixInsight job	2W7K8O00COOISESMSB6PVRL1AK540OXA
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	11h20m14s.348
RA (top/left)	11h21m13s.211
RA (top/right)	11h21m09s.588
RA (bottom/right)	11h19m15s.427
RA (bottom/left)	11h19m19s.404

Dec (center)	+12°59′39″.40
Dec (top/left)	+12°39′35″.50
Dec (top/right)	+13°20′22″.80
Dec (bottom/right)	+13°19′46″.55
Dec (bottom/left)	+12°38′58″.23

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M66 - RC first light

M66 - RC first light

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M66 - RC first light

M66 - RC first light

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