September 10, 2009

IC1318 and friends

You know some nights when everything goes right, and all you really remember is the imaging? Yes? Then you also know the soul destroying, life sucking nights where a long list of things that worked just fine last time decide to conspire against you. Last night was the latter option. I wont bore you with details, but I nearly packed up at 11pm and went to bed.

Thankfully (almost) all the problems went away after I rebooted my laptop, so I managed to get everything working, left it running for ~6 hours, and still went to bed  🙂

Seeing wasnt great, a fair amount of vapour in the air, lit up by the moon, but it was quite still in the sky, breeze free on the ground… and bl__dy cold! Not “winter” cold, but autumn has definitely arrived with the fresh mornings leaving everything covered in dew.

Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD
OTA: Borg 77EDII @ f/4.3
Guiding: SW ED80 + SX Lodestar + PHD
Imaging: Starlight Xpress M25C + MaximDL, 24×900s, Astronomik 13nm Ha (101 bias, 101 flats)
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: PSCS2

Note: the lower right corner in the mid sized image shows some odd curvature, which I pretty convinced is due to me overtightening the front tube ring on the Borg and pinching the objective. Next time out, I will have to keep an eye on that.

(Click on image for larger version)

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August 21, 2009

Deep field NGC7000/IC5070/IC5067

Well, although forecasted as a clear night on Wednesday, the clouds did roll in every now and then… but in between them, the seeing was great, very still indeed. A bit blustery, so I swapped my OTA and target from Iris Nebula with the MakNewt to using the Borg 77ED@f/4.3 and the North America nebula and Pelican Nebula. I knew the cloud would cause some issues, and transparency wasnt as good as I would have liked, so I decided to image in Hydrogen Alpha. Looks like it was the right choice 🙂

Highlight of the evening – sitting in my moon chair on the lawn, leaning back and looking south, a incredibly bright meteor lit of the sky, with the trail it left behind glowing for 5-6 seconds. Not often you get lucky enough to be looking in the right place at the right time:)

“Whoah!” moment of the evening – PHD deciding that the strobe light from a passing aircraft was a better star to be guiding on than the real guide star. Yes, it did pass RIGHT through the FoV for the guide scope.

Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD
OTA: Borg 77EDII @ f/4.3
Guiding: SW ED80 + SX Lodestar + PHD
Imaging: M25C + MaximDL, 21x900s, Astronomik 13nm Ha (101 bias, 101 flats)
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: Registar+ ImagesPlus + PSCS2

(Click on image for the large version… its worth it for the finer detail!)

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July 26, 2009

IC1396 (Borg First Light)

Usually it takes weeks and weeks to get a clear sky after new kit arrives, but it was threatening to clear last night so I set up.

The clouds didnt really want to play ball as they were supposed to, so I only really managed to get about an hour of really clear skies, but I was just glad to be outside. Nice to see the Milkyway stretching down to the southern horizon again, and the return of astrodark again.

As much as I would like to have had a full night imaging, I was happy wth getting the Borg out and imaging. Call this a dry run of things to come 🙂

Almost zero flex in the system (0.28 pixels per hour or thereabouts). I was also imaging with the WO66 but that was more to find the correct back focus distance for the reducer, so I wasnt expecting much out of that one.

Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD
OTA: Borg 77EDII @ f/4.3
Guiding: SW ED80 + SX Lodestar + PHD
Imaging: M25C + MaximDL, 5×600s, Astronomik 13nm Ha (51 bias, 51 flats)
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: ImagesPlus + PSCS2

(Click on image for larger but slightly noisy version)

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July 4, 2009

Veil complex after a nightmare evening

Gah, after the “Perfect night” on Wenesday, Yin and Yang have now swung back in the opposite direction by giving me one of those nights I wish I hadnt started. Random USB kit failures, Lodestar kept spitting out black frames, replaced with DSI which spat out white images (then died), GPS mouse failed occasionally, Logitech wingman controller for game pad was sporadically working… lost 90 minutes on that!

(Remember kiddies, just because your brain told you that you put the USB hub out on the table, and your brain also told you that you put the power supply out and plugged it into the 4-way, it does help if you actually connect the two items!).

Discovered some flex in the system, which got me pricing up a Borg 77 or 101, only to discover today that a lot of PHD users on the stark labs Yahoo group are stating that newer versions of PHD are giving some weird RA trailing effects. WIll watch that thread with great interest, and put the thoughts of Borg goodliness to one side for now.

Also, not sure if I have the correct 56mm back focus distance for the WO66 FLAT2 unit. WIll have to investigate that as well. The very edges/corners of this image have very bloaty stars.

I`ll be back for this one later in the year….

Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD, plus CCD Commander
OTA: William Optics ZS 66SD
Guiding: FLT98CF + SX Lodestar + PHD
Imaging: M25C + MaximDL, 9×600s, Astronomik 13nm Ha (100 bias, 100 flats)
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: ImagesPlus + PSCS2

(No larger image, its too noisey!)

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July 2, 2009

NGC6960 in Ha… finally!

I missed this one totally last year due to poor weather (either cloudy, or too windy to use the 190MN), so the chance to shoot it this year was too good to miss.

I have to say that shotting narrowband Hydrogen Alpha during what is effectivly twilight still gets fairly decent images. You have to be careful with the noise when post-processing, but its certainly not a waste of time to get out there and image.

The dew last night was getting a bit crazy… as soon as it started to cool, the amount of water that dropped out of the air (and onto all the electrics!) was terrifying.

So, anyway, here we go:

Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD, plus CCD Commander
OTA: Skywatcher 190 MakNewt
Guiding: ED80 + SX Lodestar + PHD
Imaging: M25C + MaximDL, 17×600s, Astronomik 13nm Ha (100 bias, 100 flats)
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: ImagesPlus + PSCS2

(Click on the image for a larger version)

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June 24, 2009

Another Eagle has landed (M16 Ha)

I`ve been after this one ever since I (stupidly) tried to bag it with an unmodified 350D a few years back… I learnt quickly after that episode!

Its really low in he sky, way down in the murk from the UK, but its probably the best time of the year to image it. I know the sky wasnt great last night, turned a bit murky as the mositure dropped out of the sky, and then a bit misty early this morning, but considering it is so low, and the sky wasnt truly “dark”, I am happy with this image.

This was also first light for the Alan Gee telecompressor. The C11 does not provide a very flat field for large chip CCDs (see the closeup version of my M13 a while back for reference), and I had tried the 6.3 focal reducer several times before, but in the 18+ months I have had the Alan Gee unit, I had never tried it. Looking at the image, it gives a better flat field, but nowhere near perfect. CCD Inspector gives some dodgy results on the FITs files, probably because of the nebula in the center affecting its calculations.

Last weekend I spent some time arranging the kit so the back focus is somewhere near correct for the Alan Gee unit when using the Celestrin Off Axis Guider, and at the same time, ensuring that the lodestar guide camera is also in focus at the same time. Last night, all the bits went back together again, and everything worked first time.

Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD, plus CCD Commander
OTA: C11 + Alan Gee Telecompressor (@f/5.9)
Guiding: ED80 + SX Lodestar + PHD
Imaging: M25C + MaximDL, 1×600s, Astronomik 13nm Ha (100 bias, 100 flats)
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: PSCS2

(Click on image for larger version)

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June 24, 2009

Cygnus Ha Widefield

Just a quick process on this widefield image. The camera was piggybacked on the back of the EQ6/C11 while I was imaging something else (yet to be processed!), so this is “bonus” data 🙂

Imaging: QHY8 + 28mm Nikon DSLR Lens, Nebulosity, 5×900s, Baader 35nm Ha
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: PSCS2

(Click on image for larger version)

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June 1, 2009

IC1396 two-pane mosaic

Why cant we have this run of clear skies in the winter, when the wide field objects are high in the sky and its dark? eh? Pah!

Had a few “issues” over the weekend while out…. nothing serious, just annoying little things.

Bad things:

Its nowhere near dark…. couldnt believe how bright the sky really was, and I believe my subs reflect that poor condition. The lack of time also didnt help, not enough subs to smooth out the noise. May have to look at GRAS for the summer months, and/or invest in a 6nm/7nm Ha filter.

PAM played silly buggers on me using the FLT98… took me nearly 2 hours on Friday night to work out that it needs to look for 1 pixel stars with widefield images, or it may not solve it.

Couldnt get Maxim to guide… it just refused to “see” a guide star until I was doing 5 second subs with the SX Lodestar. Meanwhile, PHD was finding stars all over the place at 0.5 seconds with the same camera in the same OTA. Go figure…

Had some flexure, couldnt work it out for a while. Both nights I had flex due to the FLT98 focuser (which can rotate) was a bit floppy. Saturday night I had some flex because I thought I had tightened the ADM dovetail into the puck after some lateral balance adjustments…. but apparently not as tight as I thought! When I stripped it down on Sunday, I could rock the ADM Side-By-Side plate backwards and forwards in the puck. That could have been horribly expensive!

Good things:

CCD Commander is fantastic, and would be near perfect if I could get Maxim to bloody guide! Two frame IC1396, one half per night, perfect alignment for both bits!

Registar made short work of aligning the two parts, I just had to fiddle the curves/levels on both segments (2 separate layers to start with) in CS2 to get it somewhere near usable.

It only takes me 20 minutes to set up if the mount and scopes are already out

The Televue flattener (TRF-2008) appears to be doing its job nicely.

More bad things:

Something I do when out with the kit really screws my back up. I have to be really careful to watch how I lift things. No wonder its been getting better recently, I havent been outside since Kelling(!!)

So, anyway, lets get to the image:

Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD, plus CCD Commander
OTA: WO FLT98CF + Televue 0.8x flattener (@ f/5)
Guiding: ED80 + SX Lodestar + PHD
Imaging: M25C + MaximDL, 8×600s + 16x600s, Astronomik 13nm Ha (100 bias, 100 flats)
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: ImagesPlus, Registar, PSCS2
Notes: Need far more time on this to be able to process it as far as I would like. I will return to this in August/Septmber.

(Click on image for larger version… sorry, its a bit noisy!)

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May 1, 2009

Whale and Hockey Stick (NGC 4631 and NGC 4656) from Kelling

Finally found the time to spend processing the subs from Friday night session at Kelling heath. The sky was a bit murky, and more than a bit blustery. The guiding was having real issues keeping the MakNewt pointing in the right place, so I am surprised to see the detail that has appeared out of the stacked version.

OTA: Skywatcher 190 MakNewt
Guiding: ED80 + DSI-C + PHD (The SX Lodestar misbehaved for some reason)
Imaging: M25C + MaximDL, 22×600s, IDAS (100 bias, 100 flats)
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: PSCS2 + ImagesPlus

(Click on image for larger version)

And a quick picture of my little part of the Kelling field…. the sky glow in the background is from the shower block on the Kelling Heath Yellow field. The spring event only has astronomers on the red field, so the lights stayed on pretty much everywhere else 🙁 The glow from Holt village to the south west also gets worse every year, not helped by the moisture in the air over the weekend.

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April 27, 2009

Cygnus + Milky Way Widefield

Below is a widefield image taken with my QHY8 + Gerd Neumann + 28mm Nikon DSLR lens (using a CLS LP filter), piggy backed on the back of the usual imaging setup.

The best thing about this image is that its a SINGLE 10 minute sub, hence why its a bit noisy, and why there is no larger image to view… it was a target of opportunity against a rapidly lightening dawn sky. Cant wait to get some more time on this target later in the year, and also with the IDAS filter instead… and maybe use an Ha filter for added detail

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