The moon last evening, 4 days old, 18% illuminated.
This was the 13th imaging session of the year for me and after a kit if basic mechanics/processes, I managed to get this before the clouds came in.
The evening started off with mosquitos but no black flies.. a bonus! kind of!
I used the GPS plugin to the mount this time to get the correct date time and location? as opposed to using atomic clock app to type it in. Always a chance for typos in the transcription of even such simple data.
The night previous to this had a 3 star alignment of the mount that did not quite work out, so I was curious if this would be different.
After the GPS was fixed, it was removed and the computer control cable attached. A three star align then happened, with Arcturus, Vega and Capella the star chosen by the system.
I used a 40mm eyepiece to center the start then replaced it with the camera, a x2 barlow and a software reticle to center it exactly.
After the 3rd star, it was a success.
To test this I then told the mount to go back to Arcturus and there it was, in the FOV but not centered. Then to Vega. There it also was, in the FOV but not centered. Lastly Capella. It was NOT there! bummer. Tell it to goto Capella again.. this time Capella came into the FOV.
What the Heck?
Then a goto Venus. not in the FOV. Grrrrr.
Found it, did a few images then off to the Moon.
Not in the FOV. GRRRRR.
Found it, removed the x2 barlow and did a few imaging runs.
The above it the best of the few runs, a best 5% with a 3ms exposure of about 4k frames.
Archive for May, 2023
Saturn 2023May17
Outside this morning for my first Saturn Season imaging run.. with the new ZWO ASI585MC camera
Saturn was only 19 degrees off the horizon, seeing and transparency was poor, and it was also in the Kingston Light Dome.
Also Saturn is only 17 arcseconds big at the moment… but every day it will get closer and larger!
earlier in the day:
Up at at’em at 04:00 EDT this morning for the first clear skies in 11 days. Still windy from the north.. gusty even.
Started with a 3 star align on arcturus, vega and altair. By the time I got to Altair I realized that the first start I aligned on was NOT in fact Arcturus 🙁
So I Did it again, this time only a two star… arcturus and vega. That seemed to work.
Told it to go to Saturn… my first day in the new Saturn imaging season.
It was over 1/2 degree out! arrg. Will have to read through the process again and see what is up with that!
So by now it was 04:45 and the robins started to sing and it was getting brighter. I did 3 runs of Saturn imaging at 30 seconds, discovered that I needed to FlipY in the software optics to get the correct planetary orientation, and then two runs of 180 seconds.
Saturn was only 18 degrees off the horizon in the SE (ie in the Kingston Light Pollution Dome), seeing was poor, transparency was poor, wind was gusty and it was getting into twilight.
The new camera worked out well.. The bigger field of view worked out. I was able to ROI (Region of Interest) down to about 700 or 800 pixels and was running around 18ms exposures at 50fps +
Had to fix the task scheduler job that moved image files from the observatory SSD drive and into the house, then ran them through autostakkert! v3
Used only the best 5% and put those through Registax for wavelet processing and RGB colour balance.
The end result? No bad.. not bad at all. There is noticeable ADC (Atmospheric Distortion, with Blue on top and red on the bottom) so I am still seriously considering the ZWO ADC (AD Corrector).
At my desk at work now… seriously considering if anyone will notice if I take a nap or not?
looking east
It’s been a week of cloud since the observatory was moved in place. A little more than that since the replacement observatory computer came along…
And not one bit of imaging has been done! Cloud Cloud Cloud.
That may change tonight.
Clearing clouds around 21:00 EDT… only to have the Full Moon rising! oh well, any target is still a target.
This will be not only “first light” for the observatory, but also for the computer, updated firecapture, and new mount communication software install!
If all goes well, Mars is another potential target.