This is a first light experience with my travel rig, set up with the new 91mm refractor.  A replacement for my 61mm refractor that gave me good service as a guide scope over the last year and as a primary travel imaging scope for last summer into this fall.  Last night was an unexpected clear shot in a series of weeks that were cloudy and rainy.  And the forecast for the foreseable time is cloudy.  So having received the new glass a week ago and getting it set up initially, I thought that I had better get outside on some stars to get backfocus worked out.  So I "travelled" 12 feet out onto that deck you see through the sliding glass doors (Photos below).  The backfocus work I did with the first couple of hours on my back deck.  Made good progress and decided to quit, but then thought that I ought to image something during the overnight.  Why not!?  From my deck, I was forced to aim much further east and leave the finer over head targets for another time.  My roofline clips my nights on the deck to just an hour past meridian, so this is only 90 min of integration.  Not unhappy with the result.  But I know that I will want much more time on this subjects, if I ever come back to this.  While I know that there is not all that much in this field besides the primary target, I do detect a bit of other things, such as a faint red glow just above and to the left of the PN.  I thought this might be chromo noise, given the short times here, but now that I have seen it in many images that are wide enough, I know that there is more to get.  And even the Medusa itself is not that well filled out on its weak side, above and to the left.  There are also a few groupings of small galaxies that the stars drown out.  So given that this PN is well east of the galactic plane, along with the visible galaxies behind, I think this area is mostly clear of blocking clouds.  Backfocus and tilt are still in need of improving, so BXT deserves a lot of credit here for fixing the stars.  I will say, that given the sampling of the larger aperature scope, it was easier for BXT to deal with it.  I believe that I got some nice detail in the brighter sections of this PN.  I attribute this to a wider aperature, (hence better sampling ratio), lots of dither and 2x drizzle with improved settings.

Just a short word on the Medusa nebula itself.  I hope that I did not oversharpen these cloudy arcs too much here.  These clouds with some billowing features clearly support the idea that the outflow of material from the old stars that generate PN is one of the biggest contributers to the "metals" (The components of dust and some key gases) distributed throughout galaxies.  Yes, these are never as dramatic as the outbursts from the various types of Super Novae, but they far outnumber those since even lower mass stars go through similar processes as occurred here.  And lower mass stars vastly outnumber those that will ever generate SN.  I will elaborate on those stories at another, more appropriate time.  So on to the Travel Rig:

I promised one of my followers who was interested in this setup that I would post info at first light on how this rig is set up to accept both this refractor and my 135mm Rokinon.  I should state that this is my solution.  I would love to hear about others' ideas or improvements to anything I have shown here.  Other than the double dovetail clamps, most of what is seen here is pretty routine.  Below are two images of the complete travel rig,  The first image is with the WO FLT91, with 0.8X flattener/reducer.  Also, you can see my powerpack below:


Next is the dovetail area in better detail to show how I can swap the two optics with only dealing with 4 cables:

A Vixen dovetail clamp is mounted directly onto a large Losmandy plate.  This is very low profile as can be seen in the top image.  The Vixen knobs are nice and long and easy to tighten. The Losmandy plate mounts to the AM5.  The key is that the Losmandy plate has enough real estate to mount both the computer and the Pegasus power/heater/usb unit as well.  These each have software profiles for each of the two optics.  Ideally, I will never remove anything from the AM5 that you see on the AM5 in this photo.  Also, note that the guide scope is mounted to the AM5 so cabling of that stays put and I never touch that scope and camera, even for focusing.  And, no, the guide scope does not clash with any part of the mount under any normal circumstances.  So to mount either optic, it is: 1. mount optic to the vixen clamp (position is fixed and reasonably well balanced)  2. plug in cables: Heater, focuser, camera data, and camera power  3.  Choose the correct profile in NINA  4.  Setup a target.  5. Image!

I learned last night that the 91 is about as big an optic as I think I would want to use on this setup.  First, the rig did not tip over, or even hint at tipping during operation, including a number of meridian flips.  Second, mostly has to do with carrying weight.  I am glad that I did not get a 100mm refractor.  But I am confident that with this 91mm, I will never need a counterweight with this undersized tripod.  This is not mean to be a backpack rig!  But more of a car camping rig.  So I think it works for me.  Also, you see my new power pack.  It is a 1230 WattHr unit.  It powered my CPAP overnight consuming 39% of a full charge using the inverter.  Used about 15% of the full charge on a full night run along with morning Flats and data transfer.  It also charges fully in an hour using a standard outlet, but longer (6 hr.) using a car charger or solar.  I do not like the available 12 V outlet.  I just hate cigarette lighter style interfaces.  They keep sliding out.  I would like to rewire that using a two outlet Power Pole recepticle, but not sure I want to void the warranty to do so.  I may just glue the damn cigarette adaptor in semi-permanently.