Astro imaging is something I have dabbled with on and off with for many years.
Never with much enthusiam as it took away from my visual observing.
Being  a visual observer for many years and having been spoilt under the dark skies of Manitoulin Island, the city of Toronto makes it tough to be a visual observer. It's gotten worse every year and I see fewer and fewer night sky objects.

Hence my interest in imaging was increased, as we now have access to an

incredible array of products for the novice and advanced astro-imager.

Several months ago, Celestron announced the Celestron Origin Telescope.
It sounded interesting and made some bold claims about what it could do.

Recently we received our first shipment of this instrument .
(In stock as I write this )
 

I was able to borrow one of my colleague Mike, who was the first to order
this telescope as soon as it was announced.   
Last night, I had the opportunity to run a short test on this instrument and 

I have to say I was blown away by it's capabilities. I had a very limited window of time to run the test, so I set it up at the end of my driveway. 

Under the worst conditions mind you.
All my neighbours have security lights and some homes have lights all around them all night long . Lets not mention all the trees obscuring views.

It took all of 5 minutes to set the scope up, around 11pm when it was actually reasonably dark. The alignment process took 3-4 minutes.  All I really did was flip a switch, press a few prompts and I was ready to image.

The free Origin APP was intuitive and easy to use. You can even see the image processing live in a box screen while you peruse the other well thought out features in the app. 
 
I picked an obscure nebula called the Firecracker .  Primarily because I had access to it between some trees. It was also suggested as one of Tonights best objects in the menu.  I took a 5 minute image (Ideally 30 mins to 1 hour would have been better, but I was on a time crunch).  The dew was starting to get heavy and obscure the stars.  I was not concerned about the telescope, because Celestron has installed a built in automatic dew system.

Satisfied that this remarkable RASA F2 Imaging telescope lived up to 
it's advertising claims, in a very short test, I packed it up and headed in for the night. 

I can't wait to use it under better or same conditions and do some longer exposures which I will share with you in the future.

Out of 5 Stars, I give the Origin a well earned 5.

Clear Skies,

Ray 

P.S. As I was imaging the Firecracker nebulae, some clown was setting off fireworks in the distance A sign from the Universe perhaps?