Omega Centaurii

[Rusty2]

Hello again : )

Last Friday and Saturday night were clear here on the South Coast so I took the opportunity
to do some imaging/experimenting .

I tried to image the Rim Nebula , Herschel's Ray and Omega Centaurii and lost 60% of them to eccenctricity .

I'm still having problems taming my RA axis but thanks to PaulSthcoast , I think I found the reason it hasn't been behaving . The plate on my pier was pretty close to level but the level bubble on the AZ-EQ6 GT was way off .

Although I lost 40 out of 50 2 minute subs , Omega Centaurii came out nice enough for a beginner . It looks far better on a colour corrected 4K monitor .

SW Esprit 150 ED
ZWO ASI6200 OSC
10 out of 50 2 minute subs
20 flats 50 darks 20 bias .
Pixinsight Lightroom

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Rusty, you’ve got yourself a nice result here albeit the lost subs etc.
This is such a mesmerising glob, plenty of stars.

You certainly have captured a nice central mass, pin point stars mate and good colour (shorter exposure could improve even more with that)
Well done
Anthony

[Zubenel (Wes)]

I mirror Anthony's remarks. A nice rendition. Give 30 sec subs a crack and compare. Cheers

[Rusty2]

Anthony , Wes , I appreciate your advice , thank you , I'll have a go at shorter subs : )

[Doogs38 (Alex)]

Hi Rusty. Nice pic ... makes me think I should give more love to GCs. Regarding your AZ-EQ6, I use one too and have never trusted the built-in bubble level. I bought a 2 x small levels from good ol Bunnings: a much larger version of the mount's bubble level, and, a small 'normal level bar ... it's about 20cm long. I learnt two things from using them - the small plate that steadies the tripod's legs is a good proxy for the judging if the mount is level, and, IMHO the mount doesn't need to be perfectly level to work well (... as discussed over at the Cloudynight forums) but getting it close is certainly desirable. Every time I set up my mount I do a very quick check (using the small level) to make sure it's roughly level and then crack on! Alex

[Rusty2]

Originally Posted by Doogs38

IMHO the mount doesn't need to be perfectly level to work well Alex

It doesn't seem to have made much of a difference Alex , but I also dropped the guide speed to .25 and saw an instant change in the RA axis . It has settled right down and my guiding is now under the threshold for my scope . 15 and 20 minute exposures aren't a problem .

Thanks for your thoughts !