wpo - my 90mm f/6 OG astrograph aka Meade DS-2090 OTA

I've acquired a Meade DS-2090 refractor with 90mm f/9 coated OG and mounted it piggyback on my Meade SCT [in lieu of the shorty Meade ETX-70] for deepsky imaging with some sample images below in brief exposures. For a starter telescope the OG is also a good performer visually with tight diffraction rings around stars - the Double-Double in Lyra is well resolved. To increase the effective fov and speed a homemade focal reducer is used immediately before the CCD initially but removed later for new SX Lodestar CCD.

Here's a series of summer DSOs in the SE sky on a single night with the full moon low down south in Sagittarius and summer solstice twilight sky to the north - it includes classic M57, M27, PNe and later GC and Barnard's [red dwarf] Star whilst the moon absent.

n7006 GC del n6781 pne aql

M57+central star M27 M15 GC PEG M56 GC LYR M71 GC SAG N6426 GC OPH N7331 GXY PEG STEPHANS QUINTET

barnards star oph

M57+central star M27 PNe N6905 Del PNe N6886 pne N6790 pne N6781 Aql M71 OC sagitta M26 OC gc N6760

These are some of the first results including quasar 3C273 in Virgo, two newly discovered novae in Oph in May 2008 and some popular large galaxies etc.

quasar 3c273 m57 gc mix m39 oc m57 ring neb m13 gc nova oph 1 08 nova oph 2 08

text & images copyright Maurice Gavin June 2008  via www.digits.com