An old friend is back - M81 with new gear

Trains disturbing Observatories (or the staff rather) have a history in Ireland.

When they were going to build a railway station in Armagh during the nineteenth century the director of the Observatory, Romney Robinson, scuppered the plans:

"The trains will shake my telescopes! ".

To this day there is no railway station in Armagh town.

Peter.

I guess he should have bought a decent mount then...

I'd bet he was popular with the local traders :lol:

wow the difference in the guiding is amaizing the detale is excellent looking forward to seeing it in colour. the difference in the mount is quite noticeable when it comes to guiding the stars dont look stretched,
well done mate

This really is a great target! The difference in detail with your new equipment is impressive. Your previous best is a great image but the new one is superb!

Bart.

Thanks for the comments guys.

Michael: This was with the ATIK16HR.

One thing I did notice was a bit of coma towards the top. This is a crop from the full frame so thats why you don't see the coma at the bottom. The baader coma corrector is good but as you can see not perfect. Apparently it works better around f/5. OTOH the televue paracorr is designed for f/4 scopes so this might be something worth trying. I can get a loan of one of these to try, so that might just do it. I'm not terribly concerned about it but as always it's nice to get as good images as possible.