Helix Nebula in HOO with my new Meade 12in ACF F8 (robonrome)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Aquarius (Aqr) · Contains: Helix Nebula · NGC 7293

Helix Nebula in HOO with my new Meade 12in ACF F8, robonrome

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Helix Nebula in HOO with my new Meade 12in ACF F8

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Helix Nebula in HOO with my new Meade 12in ACF F8

Haven't posted for a while as I've been trying to get up to speed with my new Meade 12in F8 ACF... this was an upgrade to the 10in i had briefly that suffered from some astigmatism.

After mid length refractors, Imaging at 2400mm on an SCT is something of a challenge as is getting to grips with mirror shift, large temp shifts, collimation and even basics like focussing at F8 ... have been gradually ticking off the boxes... first getting guiding working (CEM120 carriers it well) and a big step for narrowband here using NINA to calculate focus offsets so I can use LUM filter to focus... saves a lot of time when with Ha it was needing 30s per exposure to focus on the Helix and in any case get's a more accurate focus. Found with this OTA that clockwise turn of the built in focusser pushed the mirror forward and it's best to end on that before collimating to avoid mirror flop when moving about the sky. Actual auto-focus is being done here with an Esatto 2in.

In the end need to accept that stars aren't going to be as sweetly defined and round everywhere as on a good refractor, but this seems to be less of an issue once processing a good stack especially from either side of meridian.

Takes a long time to get a decent S/N at F8 (no surprise I guess). I've since purchased an 0.67x reducer that works well with this ACF and tweaking to get that right now that will help.

Here I've stacked and basic process in APP and then combined and processed in Startools before combining and tweaking in PS CC.

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Astrometry.net job	6304652
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Helix Nebula in HOO with my new Meade 12in ACF F8

Helix Nebula in HOO with my new Meade 12in ACF F8

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Helix Nebula in HOO with my new Meade 12in ACF F8

Helix Nebula in HOO with my new Meade 12in ACF F8

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