Back to Astrophotography ! And QHY128C First Light

I haven't "blogged" in quite some time, life and weather have gotten in the way. I produced a total of 5 images last year(2019). This month alone I have equaled and exceeded that amount. Recently I upgraded some of my astro-gear and purchased a QHY128C. I use this camera with my trusty AstroTech AT65EDQ. It yields an image roughly 3 x 4.45 degrees. This set-up is piggybacked on my 11" Celestron Edge HD. I use a Hyperstar(V4) and a QHY163M with the Celestron. I have a filter slider with the Hyperstar set-up, but with the addition of the new QHY128C I use just a Lum filter (more on that later) For now I will refer to the QHY163/Hyperstar as Setup#1 and the QHY128C/Astrotech AT65EDQ as Setup#2. I started in the southern skies, capturing some of my favorite targets.

M8 and M20 The Lagoon and Trifid Nebulas(Setup#2)

Camera:QHY128C

Telescope: Astrotech AT65EDQ

Mount: Piggybacked on 11"Celestron EdgeHD & Orion HDX-110

8x300sec

I used this data from the color camera and added it to the luminance data captured with the QHY163M(Setup#1)

50x30 seconds

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46x30 seconds

I used the Luminance data from setup#1 on a crop from the RGB image of setup#2

So far I'm happy with these 2 telescope/camera combos. In total there is less than 1 hour of imaging time. 2 rigs and a fast scope really pays dividends. I'm really pleased with the star colors and overall color balance from the QHY128C. No more swapping filters on the Hyperstar, I'll just continue to use a Lum filter(and possibly narrowband)in the future