Date/time: July 12, 2008 12:45am
Location: Victoria Center Observatory, Observatory Hill, Victoria, BC

This is a test image where we are trying to shoot at f/6.3. Our first attempts produced extreme vignetting, however this image shows much promise. The vignetting was successfully dealt with using Images Plus and a flat frame taken the following day of blue sky using the same focus and setup as was used for taking the light frames the previous evening.

The bright star 52 Cygnus caused a spectral reflection in the image just visible below and to the right of the centre of the image (despite my efforts to dodge it out). Otherwise, there appear to be few problems with this image. We now have f/6.3 capability using the Meade 14" SCT using a simple Meade brand f/6.3 focal reducer + Meade t-adapter + Canon EOS t-adapter.

This image shows a great deal of filamentary detail, illustrating how a large aperture telescope is capable of showing fine detail.

Camera: Hutech-modified Canon XTi dSLR mounted prime focus
Telescope: Meade LX200 14" SCT operating at f/6.3, mounted on a Paramount ME
Exposure: 2 minutes
Frames: 30
ISO: 800

Processing:

• ImagesPlus 3.0: digital RAW to FITS development; dark & flat frames applied; visual grading indicated no bad images (4 grade B images used); manual alignment using shift & rotate; average used to combine images; fairly aggressive digital development (BP 800).
• ACDSee Pro 2 Photo Manager: 48 bit to 24 bit RGB conversion; some contrast stretching in darker areas, cropping; colour balance check; image size reduction, conversion to tif.
• Corel PhotoPaint X3: some additional contrast stretching in midtone areas to emphasize filaments; conversion of tif to jpg