The Scruffy Astronomer

Finally, an image! I've finally got around to processing an image of NGC1365 - the Great Barred Galaxy - that I got from the ASV's dark sky site in Central Victoria a couple of weekends ago. It isn't the best image I've taken, but it's interesting, and it's my first serious image since before the pandemic! But it was a challenge - I made things hard for myself by using two scopes, two cameras and one very rusty astrophotographer.  Frankenscope! The colour information in the image was gathered in 51 five-minute exposures using a colour camera on a Sidereal Trading modified telescope. This is one crazy machine.  The front half - the objective - of the scope is a saxon 102mm FCD100 triplet, which is a beautiful piece of glass. We removed the somewhat unworthy focuser and replaced it with an Astroworx Crayford focuser made in our own factory. This focuser will soon be launched onto the market, and we hope it will do well. The guide scope was made by Sky-Watcher, t