Central region of M31 from before DSC

[Fay]

Your'e getting cheeky!!!!! You know it is fantastic, a take your breath away moment.

[Rocket Pooch]

yes but I only seem to et 3 sessions like that a year, how anoying, maybe its time to buy a house in France.

[MarkS]

That's a stunning image Chris.

[RobertM]

None too shabby Chris - it's certainly thrown the gauntlet down for M31.  I assume it was with the HX916 ?

[Mike]

Great processing. Lovely detail.

[Rocket Pooch]

yes it was with the HX916 and ED80 last year from france, this year I would like to do a nice M33, M45 and also some dark nebula, but it needs to be clear when we get there.

[Mike]

There are loads of dark nebula out there that are very rarely imaged. Those two Observing Officers books I have lists hundreds of them and there are loads that would make interesting, if challenging, subjects.

[RobertM]

Mike, are those your books or the societys ?  I want to get myself a book that shows deep sky objects so I could plan observing sessions - any recommendations ?

[Fay]

I was testing last night. I got AstroArt to work guiding with SX but while the bubbles kept in the centre for a while, they suddenly went walkabout. I will have to read up a bit more on the settings, unless you have any tips, Chris.
The trouble with using the SX for guiding was, too many stars. It was difficult to not include other stars in the guiding rectangle.


I changed to PHD & modified webcam & it was easy to do......last night.

I flitted about, as I knew sky would not be good enough for an image. I did 4 min of M31, but centre really blown out. How did you keep your core in check, Chris?
Mark, I cannot work out how you got such a good Eagle when your guide star warning went off so many times  because of cloud. I always stop the guiding when this happens.

[Mike]

Mike, are those your books or the societys ?  I want to get myself a book that shows deep sky objects so I could plan observing sessions - any recommendations ?

They belong to the society. They are really good. There are two books and here are the details - http://www.willbell.com/HANDBOOK/nitesky.htm

[MarkS]

Fay,

If PhD loses the guide star for a few seconds at a time, it is not a disaster.  The mount will continue to track the sky as normal and when the guide star is "found" again, the guiding software will send the mount any small correction pulse it needs to bring it bang on target again.  The resulting subs are usually quite usable, as you noticed from my Eagle.

Talking about guiding, I've realised I probably need a longer focal length guidescope.  As an example, a 0.5 pixel guiding error in my 300mm guidescope translates into a 3 pixel error for the 1800mm imaging scope.   So I'm going to experiment with a 2x teleconverter on my 300mm telephoto lens which will give me 600mm focal length but, unfortunately, will also reduce me to an aperture of  F9 instead of F4.5

Mark

[Rocket Pooch]

I was testing last night. I got AstroArt to work guiding with SX but while the bubbles kept in the centre for a while, they suddenly went walkabout. I will have to read up a bit more on the settings, unless you have any tips, Chris.
The trouble with using the SX for guiding was, too many stars. It was difficult to not include other stars in the guiding rectangle.


I changed to PHD & modified webcam & it was easy to do......last night.

I flitted about, as I knew sky would not be good enough for an image. I did 4 min of M31, but centre really blown out. How did you keep your core in check, Chris?
Mark, I cannot work out how you got such a good Eagle when your guide star warning went off so many times  because of cloud. I always stop the guiding when this happens.

Fay,

You need to increase the telescope speed, its overcorrecting at the moment, also you might need to SWAP the XY.

Chris

[Fay]

Thanks Chris. As I alter these things, can you see the difference straight away, or do you have to wait a while for new instructions take effect?

[RobertM]

Mike, any chance I could borrow both of those books for a couple of weeks ?

[Mike]

As long as they are brought back by the next observing session on the 26th August that will be fine.