M103 finalized

Here's the final version of the Messier 103. The open cluster is located in constellation Cassiopeia with a magnitude of 7.4.

This open cluster was discovered in 1781 by Charles Messier's friend and collaborator Pierre Mechain. It's one of the most distant open clusters, with distances of 8000 and 9500 light years from the earth and ranging about 15 light years apart. (wikipedia)

Here's RGB image with 20:20:40 minutes of exposure.

Full size in Astrobin

NGC2685

And one more project to continue, Polar ring galaxy NGC2685.

IC342, the hidden galaxy

This is one of my on-going projetcs with a 3h 50min of exposure. I've planned to shoot some 3-4 hrs more so I'll continue with this one later.

Full size (>5MB) available on Astrobin.

M103

I took a quick 1 hour picture of this open cluster.

Here's RGB image with 4*300s exposure for each color binned 1*1.

SH2-207 and SH2-208

This was one of my last day targets!

Here's two sharpless objects, SH2-207 is the bigger one and SH2-208 is the smaller one. There's also a lot of very dim nebulosity aroud these two.

Here's 11.5 hrs of exposure with Ha (20*1800 sec) and RGB (10*180 sec each binned 2*2).

NGC2403

I've shot 2-3 targets per night for last few clear nights. Everything has worked just perfectly so I've been able to sit down and relax...

One of these targets was spiral galaxy ngc2403 in constellation Camelopardalis. It is an outlying member of the M81 and is approximately 8 million light-years distant with the size of 21.9*12.3 arcmin and magnitude of 8.9.
This image has total exposure of 6h 5min (L=13*1200sec, R=7*300sec, B=8*300sec and G=8*300sec). Luminance binned 1*1 and colors 2*2.

14" Newtonian

This was about a year long project from first orders to first light!

So here's my "home build" 14" Newtonian inside the observatory. There's not too much extra room but it fits in perfectly.

This is combination of parts from several manufacturer's and a home made carbon fiber tube.

Here's some specifications:
Primary mirror:                  Oldham Optical, 14" (355mm) with PV 1/10λ and strehl 0.97
Secondary mirror:              Oldham Optical, 4.7" (120mm) 
Focal ratio:                        f/4.8 (focal length 1700mm)
Primary mirror cell:            Orion Optics U.K
Secondary spider:               Protostar, 4-vane heavy-duty with anti-dew heater
Focuser:                            Orion Optics U.K, 3" Crayford with 10:1 reduction (+RoboFocus)
Field corrector:                  Orion Optics U.K, 3" CFF (corrected field flattener)
Tube inside diameter:         400mm
Tube length:                       about 1600mm
Weight:                             about 30kg (without camera)

And here's a detailed picture of the camera. As you can see I didn't pay too much of attention for finalizing the tube. And I needed to add a steel plate (~3kg) under the Robofocus to balance it better (to fit it inside the observatory). The adhesive tape is used only for blocking the possible scattered light. Sbig RGH (remote guide head) is used for guiding.