Owing to changes at home, it was going to be really difficult to get the tripod plus ED80 outside easily and safely, so I thought that I would get myself a smaller more portable telescope. I came across a Celestron XLT 6, which seemed to fit the bill. I have spent a few very interesting nights just observing, anything and everything from asterisms to double stars, nebulae etc. The Celestron is a beautiful piece of optical machinery! My only complaint has been that it is not a 11 or 14 inch! When I compared it with the ED80, even thought the ED80 is acknowledged to be a great telescope for a beginner to do wide field deep sky astrophotography, it is definitely lacking in resolution compared with the Celestron. Last night, I tried taking some images with the Celestron, which was made more difficult by having to set up the finder, camera and then find out how to focus it accurately (software was being difficult!). Anyway, in the end I managed to get 3 useable 30 second frames and the photo below shows the result. Compare this with the one If did last year using the ED80. Some way to go I think !!
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| Orion Nebula seen via Celestron XLT 6 (but only 3 30s frames, no calibration frames at all) |
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| Orion Nebula via a Skywatcher ED80 (45 x 45s with calibration frames) |
Even though the image is rubbish, it does hold some promise for what I might get with a good series of frames , plus a full set of calibration frames. The field of view is narrower and the resolution higher.
