December 19, 2019
Last night I finally got around to trying the Celestron C8 for imaging. All I've used
it for up till now is planets. I have a focal reducer that makes it an effective 1100mm
focal length at f6.3. I didn't think I'd be able to get many keepers at that
focal length without getting into autoguiding, but I was surprised to get around 50%
good images. It makes up for that with the images I can get of things that are too
small for my 500mm lens, like M1, the Crab Nebula.
This is M77 again, but this time photographed at 1100mm focal length. The core
of the galaxy shows up much better, the outer halo not so much.
I guess that is expected shooting at f6.3 instead of f4 with the 500mm.
M1, the Crab Nebula. I've done this many times before at 500mm focal
length, which is evidently not enough. This is amazing to me! Forty-five 60 second
exposures for this. I deleted a lot of images that weren't good enough. Stars are nice
and round here. I think I will be trying some more photography with the C8 tonight.