I finally got to first light my recently received A-P 140mm. Saturday night on the Blue Ridge Parkway was a rare night- stable 35-32F temperatures, no wind, steady skies and no humidity. The Mach1GTO mount tracked beautifully with no issues using my SBIG STV on eFinder. I am still worried given the long length of the OTA whether this will be an issue on more gusty nights. I am using a Canon 20Da with the A-P reducer, so I believe this takes it down to around f/6. The following is a 8x4min at ISO1600. The stars are pin point to the edge of the frame- very nice. I have not done flats yet but it is decently flat for a rough processing. This focal length is just right to resolve the Perseus double cluster. The only draw back to the whole set up is I had to spend much time on the ground in various exotic yoga positions to focus and compose (my laptop was in the shop). Not too fun there. Otherwise the A-P 140mm behaved liked a perfect lady. The rotating focuser was nice to use for composition- I learned that there was no need to clamp it down big time- just a decent tightening would whole the setup steady. Overall- very nice scope, and I look forwards to more imaging in the coming months. The image is only very lightly processed.
Ivan
Ivan
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