M31 110 mm refractor
Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2026 2:36 pm
Williams Zenithstar 110 mm F 7.0 apochromat (TMB -designed lens) - reduced to F5.5 using a WO III reducer flattener, Moonlite focuser and focus controller, Ioptron CEM70G mount, 80 mm f = 400 mm guide scope with ZWO ASI 120MM camera, ZWO AI294 MC main camera. Optical train locked using a Baader clicklock
370 x 66s frames at unity gain captured in Sharpcap, PHD2 guiding, 1.545 arcsec/ pixel. Processing in PixInsight- 2X Drizzle CFA, Multiscale (MARS data) background subtraction, RCD Blur Exterminator star reduction- SPCC colour calibration, multiscale adaptive stretch, exponential and arcsinh adjustment and RC Noise Exterminator noise reduction.
One (rare) clear, moonless and reasonably still night on 09-10/10/26 at ~ Bortle6.
Yet another image of M31 but I was quite pleased with it since it demonstrated that simply fitting a Baader clicklock completely fixed an apparent 'tilt' problem previously encountered using this telescope - meaning that I am now really getting the best out of this more than 20 year old but still good quality telescope. Secondly the use of the PI - MARS project background subtraction seems to have resulted in a relatively deep image that is just as good or better than one previously obtained from an ~ B4 site.
370 x 66s frames at unity gain captured in Sharpcap, PHD2 guiding, 1.545 arcsec/ pixel. Processing in PixInsight- 2X Drizzle CFA, Multiscale (MARS data) background subtraction, RCD Blur Exterminator star reduction- SPCC colour calibration, multiscale adaptive stretch, exponential and arcsinh adjustment and RC Noise Exterminator noise reduction.
One (rare) clear, moonless and reasonably still night on 09-10/10/26 at ~ Bortle6.
Yet another image of M31 but I was quite pleased with it since it demonstrated that simply fitting a Baader clicklock completely fixed an apparent 'tilt' problem previously encountered using this telescope - meaning that I am now really getting the best out of this more than 20 year old but still good quality telescope. Secondly the use of the PI - MARS project background subtraction seems to have resulted in a relatively deep image that is just as good or better than one previously obtained from an ~ B4 site.
- drizzle_integrationx2_370x66s_BXT_corr_MSG_BXT_star_0.3_hal0.1_ns_0.5_SPCC_MAS_EXP_arcsinh_curves_MoiseXt0.34_defaults_j_SCNR_j_mini.jpg (989.54 KiB) Viewed 126 times