M51 The Whirpool Galaxy

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Andy
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With Galaxy season upon us, especially from my location, decided to get a longer FL scope to replace my problematic Esprit 80 (400mm). M51 is my first light with with the new ES102 Carbon (FL 714mm). Struggled with focus and 2/3rds of the 32 frames are slightly OOF which cause some weird star shapes in smaller stars.

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy by Andy Thilo, on Flickr

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Nice shot, sorry to hear a lot were oof, new kit invariably means 1 step forward 2 steps back until you get to grips with it, as I am sure you will.
What does the longer FL give you, is it more light gathered over a shorter time?
What were the problems with the Esprit, I always thought your shots were very good with that setup.
 
Nice shot, sorry to hear a lot were oof, new kit invariably means 1 step forward 2 steps back until you get to grips with it, as I am sure you will.
What does the longer FL give you, is it more light gathered over a shorter time?
What were the problems with the Esprit, I always thought your shots were very good with that setup.

Cheers Matt. I've started using new capture software, N.I.N.A as it has built in AF whereas APT doesn't. At the start of the night I just couldn't get the focus dialled in but later on it improved a lot. However I didn't have enough new good focus frames for the stack. Still happy with the image though.

The longer FL give me a narrower FOV at the expense of less light, new scope is f7, Esprit was f5. However that's not a big issue, but the longer FL gives me better shots on smaller targets.

I've had 3 Esprit 80's, all had issues on bright stars, did a comparison as below, 1st top, 2nd middle, 3rd bottom. 3rd was close but it had a flare that couldn't be rectified. Shame as other than that it was an excellent scope, although the first scope was shocking and for £1100 optics, unacceptable.

Comparison.jpg
 
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