StarSpace Forums

Hi everyone. I'm an amateur astronomer from Lithuania, but working in Riga for last 5 years. My main job is flying B737 for Airbaltic airlines, but when I'm on days off, and have clear nights, I spend them in my backyard observatory close to Vilnius. Got into astrophotography back in 2008, after buying my first skywatcher 200/1000 telescope. After a few years of freezing outside, decided to build roll off roof observatory with a warm room. Things became a lot easier since then. Presently I have three telescopes. APM107/700 APO refractor, I bring it down to 107/525 with Ricardi 0.75 reducer. Another one is GSO RC10 Ritchey Cretien. I also have skywatcher 250 Quattro carbon edition, but this telescope is currently for sale. My imaging camera is QSI683 wsg8 with full set of narrow band astrodon 3nm filters. Two weeks ago I had a short vacation, so got some luck to image Rosette nebula. Photo was made using Ha, OIII and SII filters, APM107 APO. I'd like to get more SII data someday.

I found your forum, and decided to join, hope, you don't mind . Sorry for using English, it is too complicated for me to write in Russian, but I can speak. Will be posting more images soon. I'm a member of Lithuanian astronomy club as well , so maybe, we could arrange some star parties together and get our astronomy society closer . Paldies

Next StarPary in Suntazi observotory 11 apr. 2015
''Prokatish nas na svojom Bi737 ? '' ,)

Zalko, cto escio neznaju svoevo rabocego grafika na aprel mesiac. No jesli budu svoboden, obezatelno prijedu

Hi, Skywatcher737!
Welcome to the forum
And Rosette is fantastic!

Great picture! Could you post more details - Exposure time?

No problem . Imaging telescope APM107/700 with Riccardi .75 reducer. Ha- 5 frames 1800 sec each. SII-4 frames 1800 sec, OIII-5 frames 1800 sec. Camera QSI683, sensor temperature - 30 deg/c. All post-processing in Pixinsight.

Beautiful, sharp with great contrast and soft colors. Narrow band imaging is amazing when its done right in post processing. What mount are you using?

KristapsKem wrote:Beautiful, sharp with great contrast and soft colors. Narrow band imaging is amazing when its done right in post processing. What mount are you using?

I'm glad you like it . I use 6 years old EQ6Pro. It tracks nice, I think, I was lucky to get a good one, never had to tune it. I will try to load GSO RC10 on it, that is going to be on the mount's limits, will see how it will cope with long focal length and weight. Hopefully it'll be ok, it had 250mm quattro mounted on it, no complains