Bubble Neb

[JohnP]

Despite Moon & blustery conditions I wanted to image last night to try out my guiding (I have made a number of changes to my setup & wanted to see if it worked). Ended up pointing at Bubble - with Atik 16ic & Ha - took a set of approx 18 X 5min subs - Come out quite noisey (I think moon & fact I only took 4 darks didn't help).

Anyway here it is & as usual comments welcome...

Thks,  John.

[RobertM]

Great picture John especially considering the conditions.  The wind didn't calm down till quite late and then there was the moon ... at least it's quite low in the summer months.

The stars certainly seem to be nice and round now - what changes did you make on the guiding front ?  Also what camera do you use for guiding ?

[JohnP]

Robert, in no particular order these are the changes I have made to my setup to try & eliminate the guiding problems I was having...:-

1. Changed to a dual mount side by side bar rather than mounting scopes on top of each other. The side by side bar is a solid piece of aluminum...
2. Upgraded the latitude adjustments levers on my eq6 to much more solid ones.
3. Adjusted the mechanical DEC baclash on my EQ6 & zeroed the settings in the handcontroller
4. Changed from my SC1 guidecam to my much more sensitive SC3 (makes step 5 doeable because I can always find guide stars)
5. Changed from adjustable guide rings with plastic screws on my ZS66 to non-adjustable ones.
6. readjusted the polar alignment scope (it was a little bit off)
7. Upgraded to K3 Vers 3 (I was previously using Vers 2)
8. Changed the way I connected my guide cam to the ZS66 - I now do it through the diagonal which means the focusser doesn't have to rack all the way out - the whole setup is a lot more stable.

Last night I didn't bother drift aligning (there was a very small shift between frames but nothing like I have been seeing - I think this may have been down to polar alignment). Last night was certainly the best it has been - I did something like 20 X 5min subs & could have used all 20 - I even did a single 10min sub & although not perfect it was pretty good. I used K3 for guiding last night & it worked all night no probs..

I would say that the things that had most effect were guide rings & lattitude adjustment levers.

Cheers,  John

[RobertM]

Very interesting, that's given me a few ideas ...

[JohnP]

Cool - let me know if it works for you... The whole setup seems pretty solid now... I think all I need to do now is sort polar alignment (which I guess will mean a permanent pier) & also never 100% if ground I put tripod on doesn't compress through the night  - so I need a concrete base so I guess tripod again....

John

[RobertM]

Warning - I had my tripod on a patio I laid in the garden but it affected the image slightly when I stepped on it despite the base being 10" thick, well compacted and with a layer of concrete.  I can't seem to get the hang of this drift alignment - need either more practice or beer to get it right !

[Rocket Pooch]

Hey it looks ok to me!

[MarkS]

Nice one John!

Last night's conditions were FAR from ideal but beggars can't be chosers after 3 weeks of cloud cover. 
You've obtained a good result there.  Look's like your hard work is paying off.

[JohnP]

Cheers Mark - guiding is still not perfect when I can do 10min subs repeatedly I'll be happy....

Chris - were RU surfing from then.. hope it's not too hot......

Cheers,  John

[Daniel]

Hi John, lovely image, loads of contrast, I tried some imaging last night myself but the wind was playing havok with my CG5, so didn't get anything particularly good (tried the crescent nebula) also had some sort of drift happenning which i think was caused by the scope coliding with the mount earlier on.

will have to try the drift alignment method some time soon, would love to try a 10 min sub (though i'll probably have to image at ISO100 with the light polution around here.

[JohnP]

Thks Daniel I appreciate our comments - would love to have done this at a dark site....

John

[Daniel]

.........Just over a week eh?............

[JohnP]

I hope... don't know if i can make it yet though.....

[Daniel]

I hope I can make it myself, though again, it'll depend on if my mate can drive there, this time I might bring my guiding setup too, though all on the CG5, sod trying to lug the CGE all that way!

[Fay]

John,

Your image certainly seems very good. You have done a lot of adjustments & seems you have adjusted the fault.

Those Atik's do seem to produce a nice smooth image. Doesn't look noisey to me.

Fay