Opportunities for imaging seem to be sparse here in the summertime in the Colorado mountains. The short nights and afternoon and evening clouds make for a tough combination, and it always seems like when the sky is clear, the moon is high and bright. So I was thankful for a couple clear nights near the new moon during which I could collect a few photons from afar. I’d been waiting for an opportunity to give my new Sky-Watcher Esprit 80ED refractor a try. I’ve had it for a couple months now but this would be its first light.

My mono imaging camera and filters were mounted on my C8, so I settled for shooting through the Esprit with my ASI533MC Pro color camera and an Optolong L-eXtreme dual narrowband filter. I plopped the whole business onto my iOptron GEM28 mount with an off-axis guider and set it up in the back for a couple nights of data acquisition. (This particular setup will serve as my portable imaging rig this winter while we’re snowbirding in our RV.)

The Esprit 80ED performed nicely (as I would expect based on my experience with the Esprit 100). I didn’t need to discard any of the 129 five-minute subs I captured over the course of two evenings. Focus was sharp and stars were round throughout the entire (albeit fairly small) field of view of the 533’s sensor. Aside from a few hiccups with the GEM28 mount (it stopped listening to slew commands a couple times, forcing me to cycle the power), two nights of imaging went surprisingly smooth.

As always, I used PixInsight for the bulk of the image processing. I processed this image using some techniques I’d used before for simulating SHO with a color image shot through a dual narrowband filter. Frankly, it’s easier to do actual SHO using a mono camera and individual narrowband filters than it is to simulate it with color data, but it is what it is. I always use Affinity Photo to put the final touches on my images–usually just annotations and format conversions, but sometimes I use it for color tweaks (Affinity just seems easier for minor color adjustments than PI). The end result is what you see above.

This will be the last time you see me imaging with a color camera. I took the plunge and placed my order for the ASI2600MM Pro, which will nicely complement the ASI533MM Pro already in my possession. I’ll be parting with the ASI533MC Pro and the filters I’ve been using with it.