Test results and experiments from 7th and 8th

[Carole]

Not meant to be a pukka image, but mainly a test of the collimation of my SW130PDS which has been a struggle to get back to proper collimation.

I spent two nights imaging between the clouds, and managed 7 hours in all, but this was spread out between two targets both of which passed behind next doors tree for a time, so was swapping between one target and the other.

Success 1:
My first success was getting EQMod working with only one laptop and a HUB!!!
Yes, can you believe it after many years of not being able to use a hub, I decided to give it another "go" using my W7 laptop.  I am thinking now it might have been the old Vista laptop that was causing the hub connection problems as this worked just fine.

So this was extremely useful as swapping between two objects passing behind the tree, and both passing the Meridian and having to do a Meridian flip - I was able to do all of it from the comfort of my office (except for the first night when I didn't have the dome positioned suitably for the Meridian flip and had to go out and adjust it - learnt my lesson on night 2.

Success 2:
I finally nailed the spacing with my Atik460EX (only been imaging with it for a few years!!)  Trouble was I was using a variable spacer before and because I change my scopes and cameras around the spacing kept getting nudged.  Have now found a couple of non adjustable spacers and they won't be coming off again.

Anyway, having now been completely spoilt with the skies at Cairds, I was brought down to Earth with a bump as the choice of targets is very limited in Bromley, but also because I was testing out the SW130PDS, so the FOV could not be too big.

Well enough waffle.

This is the middle of the Rosette Nebula, I wanted a target with bright stars to see what happened with the spikes, and preferably one that could be done in NB.

In total I took just over 5 hours, but half of this was in RGB for the stars as I stupidly did 1 1/2 hours on the RED channel instead of the Ha channel wondering why the nebulosity showing was rather faint, so would have had 1 1/2 hours more on Ha.

So in fact the main part of the image is only 2hours 40 minutes.

Ha 9 x 600secs
Oiii 5 x 300secs binned x 2
Sii 4 x 300secs binned x 2
RGB (stars only) 2h 30mins

SW130PDS, Atik460EX, HEQ5
EQMod

Narrowband version only


Version with RGB stars added


My NEXT winter challenge is to try to get plate solving working. 
Had a bit of a mare trying to get it to work using APT.  I had downloaded all the software and attempted to attach the catalogues but it kept telling me it could not find one of them.  Anyway with a bit of help it is now finally working on the simulator, so now need to try it on a live sky with real camera and mount. 

Carole

[MarkS]

That image is looking really impressive!

Well done!

Mark

[Carole]

Thank you Mark, as said it was only supposed to be an exercise to check out my collimation.

The other image will not be shown as it was an LRGB too small and faint for Bromley, so that one was a "test of target" and needs a darker location. 

Carole

[Fay]

very nice Carole...........

[doug]

...both on my next January report ... with captions.

Doug.

[Carole]

Thanks Fay.

Am toying with doing a mosaic to get the whole nebula in seeing as there are few targets I can do from home.  I will leave the camera on the scope so the star spikes will point in the same direction (!!).

Never done a mosaic before, but there is a first time for everything and at least it will give me a winter project from home.

Watch this space.

Have E mailed you Doug.

Thanks

Carole

[The Thing]

Hi Carole,

Good looking image.

I would be very interested to see how you get on with a mosaic. I've tried it a couple of times but for various reasons the data was pants so I never processed them beyond the first pane.

There is a way to use APT with Cartes de Ciel to automatically do a mosaic, you can read it up on the APT forum.

I have also used NINA previously mentioned on the forum as it has a really easy mosaic planner and sequence generator. I would use that for my next attempt.

[Carole]

There is a way to use APT with Cartes de Ciel to automatically do a mosaic

Interesting but I was only going to use APT for plate solving and then revert back to Artemis for capture as I am really comfortable with that.

Also still have to get Plate solving working on APT so might be a step too far for me at this stage, but I will take a look.  Am using CdC.

I must admit was only thinking of stitching the mosaic together manually had not thought about software to do it, I know Canon Utility has a mosaic stitcher but this might only be for DSLR images.  I believe APP does it, but is this free or I need to buy the software?  I think SGP also does it, but gave up on that when my free licence ran out and I could not get it to recognise PHD and my guide camera.

Don't really want to be buying any more software if I can help it.

Carole

[Carole]

Just found the APT forum, didn't know that existed, looks like it will be worth a browse.

Thanks Duncan.

Carole

[Carole]

Lol, I have found I posted on it previously, but I don't think it looked how it does now.

Carole