Lion Nebula SH2-132

December 11, 2023 Mark

2 minute read

Details

Rig: QHY268C + Sky-Watcher ED80 + HEQ5
Software: NINA/PixInsight
Filters: Antlia ALP-T
Constellation: Cepheus

    Integration time (running total):
    * OSC 280 X 300s (1400m)
    * Total: 23h20m

    Integration time target
    * Target: 24 hours
    * Progress: 99%

Notes

Sat 14th October

Integration time:
    * OSC 105 X 300s (525m)
    * Total: 8h45m

Seeing index: Ave/Poor 3/1
Jet stream: Poor (47m/s) Moon phase: 0%
Transparency: Excellent

Finally after several weeks we have had a clear, dark night with almost no dropped frames. The project data acquisition is now finished and ready for processing.

Tues 3rd October

Integration time:
    * OSC 15 X 300s (75m)
    * Total: 1h15m

Seeing index: Excellent 5/4
Jet stream: Poor (32m/s) Moon phase: 80%
Transparency: Poor

Tonight was the first night with half a chance of imaging for nearly three weeks. However, the transparency is poor with passing clous and constant high-level thin clouds. Around of the third of the frames were discarded due to low contrast and poor stars. The remainder were barely acceptable but included in the working files for now.

Fri 15th September

Integration time:
    * OSC 57 X 300s (285m)
    * Total: 4h45m

Seeing index: Excellent 4/3
Jet stream: Ave (17m/s) Moon phase: 2%
Transparency: Ave/Good/Poor

Sat 9th September

Integration time:
    * OSC 27 X 300s (135m)
    * Total: 2h15m

Seeing index: Excellent 5/5
Jet stream: Poor (26m/s) Moon phase: 18%

What promised to be a reasonable evening was in fact rather poor. The terrible guiding gave lie to the strong jet stream and poor transparency (the humidity was very high and the temperature after the hottest day of the year didn’t drop below 20°C). I tweaked the guiding settings but nothing would reduce the bounciness of the atmosphere. To boot, many frames were lost to poor contrast caused by passing layers of thin, high cloud. In addition to this, the forecast predicted rain, if not thunder storms, in the early morning so I programmed the rig to shut down at 3am to be safe. Around 30% of the frames were scrapped.

Tue 5th September

Integration time:
    * OSC 76 X 300s (380m)
    * Total: 6h20m

Seeing index: Good/average 4/3
Jet stream: Average/Poor (21m/s) Moon phase: 55%

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