1st light with AT8RC! M27

I took this photo on Saturday night, with seeing only a 3 on a 5 scale. So it is not as sharp as I think it could have been.
I also had a limit on time and only took these exposures.

M27
AstroTech 8" RC
ST2000xm Astrondon Gen Filters
R= 4x10m binned 2x2
G= 4x10m binned 2x2
B= 4x10m binned 2x2
L= 9x10m binned 1x1

This is a link to the photo, if you click on the photo you will see full resolution.

http://www.astrophotogallery.org/showphoto.php/photo/3271

I had some issues with guiding, I would get a bad exposure at intervals. In reviewing the sequence you could see the stars changing size (bloating) from frame to frame. It seemed that the sky was constantly changing all night, with star tests visually showing a lot of scintillation and changes in the diffraction rings.

The scope does require pretty good seeing with the long focal length and image scale of .94 arc sec. But I feel that it will take much better photos when conditions allow.

For a 1st light, I am pretty happy.

The collimation came out nicely, the focuser works great and the scope seems to stay focused for long periods of time with temperatures continually dropping. It got down to about 33f at 3am and was 90f at 4pm. That is a bit of a drop!

Attached Image:

Did you measure the FWHM size of the stars? If so, what are you getting? Do you have a screen shot?

Hi Floyd,

Great first light with the new scope!
Despite the poor seeing,the results look very promising.
That is a heck of a temerature drop,did you happen to notice
how much your focus position changed from the first till the last exposure?

Nice image and congrats on the new scope,

Jason