Jul 3

Cygnus Wall

650mm focal length is already to much for the whole North America Nebula, so I tried to capture the most interesting area of the North America Nebula. At least most interesting to me 😉 Details

Jul 2

NGC 7380 Wizard Nebula

Finally clear sky! The Wizard Nebula now with 650mm focal length.What a difference to my previous shots of the Wizard Nebula at 400mm 🙂  Details

May 28

DWB 111 Propeller Nebula

The nebula season is coming 🙂 I think I now know how to prevent reflections: if there are no bright stars near to the field of view. Like in this one. Another solution would be probably to darken the inner tube and the spider. Details

May 22

Ghost Reflections

In my last M57 image taken with the 130PDS, there is a strong ghost reflection diffraction spike in the lower right area. There are a few more, but they are mainly ultra faint and only visible in 100% resolution. So far I could not explain what causes them. New Try Yesterday I did M57 again, […]

May 22

NGC 6946 Fireworks Galaxy

Almost exactly one year ago my first image after a 3 years break was the Fireworks Galaxy. Back then I was still using my Canon EF 400mm f/5.6 lens. Yesterday I captured the Fireworks Galaxy again, but this time with my new Sky-Watcher Explorer 130PDS at 650mm focal length. I really like the additional focal […]

May 10

M 57 Ring Nebula (1mm T2 Ring)

This time I used the 1mm distance ring to fine adjust the distance between sensor and corrector. 1mm seems to be too much distance between DSLR sensor and coma corrector… the borders are worser than with the 0.5mm ring. And still not enough focal length for M 57 Ring Nebula, one of my favorite objects… […]

May 10

Reproducible Collimation

After weeks of searching and reading I finally found a way to reproduce collimation of my 130PDS with my Baader Laser Colli Mark III (*) collimator. The solution is to attach the laser every time the same way, even if it’s tilted. At least it’s tilted every time the same amount. Most likely later the […]

May 2

M 13 Cluster (0.5mm T2 Ring)

For this test I used a T-2 fine adjustment ring (0.5mm) to slightly extend the distance between DSLR sensor and corrector (54mm measured distance without any ring). The stars in the corners look much better than before, but I need to go to 55mm distance. Next time I’ll use the 1mm ring! Additional I encountered […]

May 1

130PDS Improvements

Time has already come to improve my Sky-Watcher Explorer 130PDS 🙂 After using the 130PDS for 3 weeks it turned out that there are some things that could be better. So far I have equipped my 130PDS with the following improvements: 2″ Adapter with Compression Ring T-2 Fine Adjustment Rings Dust / Stray Light Protection […]

Apr 29

NGC 6543 Cat’s Eye Nebula

This time especially the right upper corner is problematic (left upper corner too, but not that much as the right upper corner). At least not all 4 corners are affected in the same way… I’m unsure what’s the reason for this… So far, after reading a lot about the topic, I think the problem is: working […]