Observing Reports
November 2006
6th November 2006
Cloudy, clear patches. Full moon, but hey, that didn’t stop me.
This time using the ED80 for imaging I setup the equipment at around 7:30pm.
The moon was very near M45 tonight and it was a really nice view through my finder scope.
Unfortunately I could barely make out Polaris between the fleeting moments of clear sky. It cleared for a short while so I managed to align the mount.
Due to the full moon and bad cloud cover I could not image anything worthwhile and only managed to practice a bit of drift alignment.
I didn’t really notice the star moving off the line while drift aligning and probably should have left it for a bit longer. The increasingly heavy cloud cover made me cut short my drift alignment as I wanted to star imaging and guiding.
All the equipment was ready to go and I tried to find NGC891, but it was too close to the moon and was not visible. Next tried for M74, same problem…….
Looking South I noticed the sky was clearing a bit so tried for M52 in Lyra. I was just getting ready to locate a guide star and I was completely clouded out.
Ahhh well, better luck next time I suppose. I don’t really mind too much as I did get some drift alignment practice.
8th November 2006
A clear sky with the moon rising to the East.
It didn’t take me long to get all the equipment set up at around 6:30pm . The Moon was almost full and was gaining height in the East. I carried out a rough polar alignment as I was only wanting to test the autoguiding with the Orion 80ED.
I used a 2 star alignment and positioned the scope on NGC891 a side on view galaxy in Andromeda. The object is of 10 th magnitude and could not be seen in the main scope. This could be due to the moon drowning out the detail.
I could not make out the galaxy on the 350D at all, even using 10 second ISO 800 just would not show the object. I did begin to think that it could be off chip and the goto may not have been very accurate. Despite this I located a guide star with the toucam and I’m finding this part of the imaging process a lot easier, just as long as I remember to adjust the guide scope rings and not move the mount. I haven’t done this yet but been close to doing it.
Loaded up DSLR Focus and PHD Guiding……..I just have say again that PHD Guiding is the best program for guiding I have ever used. The calibration works very well and results in stable guiding from what I have experienced so far and is so user friendly.
Tried a 2 minute exposure at ISO 400 and the image looked great. The object was also on the chip, which was a good start. Next, I set up a run of frames 10 x 2 minutes and clicked start. I went to the garage to setup a new freezer we had ordered and realised that I forgot to set the camera to RAW. Running back to the scope I tripped over the cables which resulted in the object being out of focus and no longer on the chip.
So after that mishap I only got one good image (see the Deep Sky section for images) and I decided to slew over to M31 as it’s an easy target to locate, being very bright.
I was not having much luck, the mount started making a terrible noise and the hand controller would not display text. What now ????? !!!!! The power pack was low on charge!
Thinking it was possibly broken I packed up all the equipment and tried a different power pack. This seemed to work as it was fully charged. I shall need to remember each time after viewing to charge the power pack.
It wasn’t too bad a viewing session as I did manage one new image of a faint object.
It’s due to be clear over the next few days so I hope to give NGC891 another try.
21st November 2006
Well it’s been a couple of weeks since I was last out, but tonight was a very clear, but slightly windy night.
While setting up, the sky appeared a bit cloudy to the North but my target for the night was M45 (again) and was very clear in that direction.
This time I did not Polar Align the mount as I was going to drift align for a while. It appears the slabs with the holes for the tripod feet bring me very close to North and drift alignment seemed to work very well
I focused and carried out some test exposures to make sure PHD was working and as always it was tracking very well. I framed M45 and located a guide star, an easy process as M45 has loads of bright stars to choose.
Over the past few weeks I have built a lightbox to acquire flat frames to remove any artefacts in the light path. It worked very well but must have made my neighbours wonder what I was up too.
The Orion ED80 was my scope of choice tonight and framed M45 well using the full sensor.
Now for a test…..8 minutes autoguiding and the result were excellent. No star trails at all and a very sharp image with no sign of field rotation.
I finally think I can now autoguide to a good standard so I gave a run of 10 minute shots a try.
Finishing up for the night I captured 4, 10 minute exposures and the resulting stacked image looks pretty good.
It would probably better to take more subs of around 5 minutes to remove a lot of grain/noise and I shall try this next time I’m out.
27th November 2006
It was a clear and windy night and I set my equipment up at around 6:30pm just before dinner. This allowed me to drift align for a few minutes and gather all my cables and gear.
I’m quite surprise at just how well my drift alignment has worked over the past few imaging sessions and tonight was going to be no different. It appears the positioning of the tripod legs on the slabs works very well and I don’t really have to drift align very long the telescope is fully set up in my garage.
Still using the Orion 80ED I attempted my first real session and went for M33, The Pinwheel Galaxy in Triangulum. The Moon was quite low in the South and only being half illuminated didn’t affect the exposures.
After drift alignment I aligned the scope to two stars and slewed to the location of M33. To my surprise I could just make out the galaxy in my 25mm eyepiece (x 24). It was only just visible but definitely there. A slight smudge of light to the centre of the galaxy allowed me to frame the camera over the object. This was not visible through the camera but once I exposed for a few seconds I could see the galaxy.
Focusing and flat fielding was next and I don’t think I exposed the flat frame very well so I shall need to read up a bit more on this, but my light box seems to be working ok.
Finding a bright enough guide star was difficult, but I did eventually managed to locate a faint one.
Even thought PHD guiding said the star was not visible over the course of the evening the guiding was flawless.
From my last session taking 4 x 10mins of M45 I managed to get quite a good final image but it really needed more subs (more images to stack) to reduce the amount of noise. That was a good lesson learnt as tonight I managed 26 x 3mins and the final processed image has actually stunned me. The amount of detail and smoothness of the galaxy is great; it finally feels like I have captured a good image. The learning curve has been steep but I now understand what I’m doing or trying to do.
Even though it takes quite a while to gather all the data and setup the scope it is worth every minute to be able to image faint sky objects which are millions of light years away.
Finally I captured 7 dark frames and let Deepsky Stacker register and stack the images.
I’m very pleased with the final image but it could do with a bit more red response (Photoshop can solve that).
Looking forward to next session, although unsure what I should image, there are so many interesting objects.