Fishead Nebula

I am proud to present the first image from my new deep sky setup. It all started in February 2021, when I tested imaging with my EdgeHD 8 at F/7 with my SXVR-H674C. I saw potential with that combination, but the FOV was small & mounting it on the Advanced VX proved challenging.

Shortly after, I pre-ordered the QHY268M to widen the field of view, followed by Astrodon 36mm LRGB & Hydrogen Alpha filters, CFW3 filter wheel, OAG-M, & various extension tubes to reach the 105mm backfous distance required by the reducer. In June, my new EQ6-R Pro arrived. After some tweaking, I got guiding around mid-0.4" RMS in PHD2.

The hardest challenge has been getting the backfocus distance correct. It should be 105mm, but mine turned out to be farther. Still, I am wondering if it fully corrects the FOV of APS-C sensors since there is still some elongation at the edges.

I have been capturing data in my suburban backyard for a month now, but had a chance to gather LRGB data under dark skies at the Eldorado Star Party. Although I plan to use this setup mostly for galaxies & planetary nebulas, I chose the Fish Nebula since it was up all night.

Most nights were cloudy, but I captured data Friday & Saturday night to make an image with the help of PixInsight processing icons from a previous image. I am satisfied with the result, but there are a few issues to work out. Backfocus still appears off, bright stars have a larger glow than I expected, and there appears to be some chromatic aberration that possibly comes from the reducer. Hopefully these can be ironed out as I continue to work on this setup.