56 Million years ago the light that made the photo left this galaxy. So pictured is what it looked like just after the Dinosaurs disappeared.
21 Hours of exposure time with a 2939mm Focal Length at F6.8. The camera uses a mono version of the Sony A7R4 sensor and external color filters.
Good eye David! The spikes are from spider vanes. The scope is a Planewave Corrected Dall-Kirkham (CDK17 to be specific). This uses spherical mirrors and a multi-element corrector lens at that back. The spherical mirrors are much easier to collimate and the field if very flat.
Let me guess; Paramount ME/MEII, AP 1200/1600 or Planewave's monster mount? I attended the imaging conference at San Jose back in 2009 and talked to the young man that designed the Planewave mount. It just so happened to be right across from the Celestron booth where the then new CGE Pro was on display. What a difference! Anyway, you do some very nice work. I got out of imaging back in 2016.
Thanks David. The Mount is a Planewave L-600. It would be different from the one you saw in 2009. These are now gearless. I used an ME2 until a couple of years ago. I basicallly wore out the gears over several years of nightly use. I don't usually post my long focal length images here. Those are on my Astrobin page at https://www.astrobin.com/users/morefield/
Just wow! Great, great images. Now that's a mount! They've come a long way since 2009. Do you ever haunt Cloudy Nights? I'm a former admin there.
I do on occasion go to CN. There is an awful lot of bluster posing as fact there so I try to be careful with it.
True that! There's nothing wrong with being a contrarian, but some take it past tolerable. Still, it's a pretty well run site with a Terms of Service that's closely watched.
That's a beautiful image! 🤩
Very nice! I see the diffraction spikes. Typically, these come from a secondary spider. Did you use a Ritchey or did you add the spikes in post? Either way, a terrific shot!