NGC1499 - The California Nebula

Question: would the ETX-70 get almost as much detail had it been used instead of your 80ED, with the same set up, considering their both refractors of similar aperture?

Seanie,

Aperture wise I dont see a problem (70mm vs 80mm no big deal). Assuming you could get the tracking to oblige then the only other difference is that the ED80 is a semi-apo and the ETX is an achromat so the stars might be a bit more halo'd. The nebula shouldnt suffer though.

How do you get the ETX to track accurately enough might be the problem. If you piggybacked it on another scope it might work. The ETX is 350mm focal lenght the ED80 is 600mm so there is more room for error with the ETX.

ANyway you'll never know for sure till you try it. I remember someone here having a signature that said. "Let them tell you it cant be done then do it" (or something like that) sounds like wise words to me!!

A text book perfect photo there Jed. :shock:
Great collour balance, no blue stars..!!!
Although it always looked more like a dragons head to me.

and you didnt even use a h-alpha filter, thats very impressive !!!

love theese big resoulution imgages were you maneges to have so much detail Great work

Thanks Dave for the reply!

Great picture :shock:

Beats this one from APOD...

antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050310.html