'Star, star teach me how to shine, shine'
Integration time (running total):
* OSC 13 X 120s (26m0s)
* OSC 11 X 30s (5m30s)
* OSC 11 X 10s (1m50s)
* Total: 33m20s
Integration time target
* Target: TBC hours
* Progress: TBC%
This is really just the start of a project which might run of of darkness and altitude this year and have to be finished next year! What is remarkable is the result from just a little over half an hour, made possible by the QHY268C camera and the power of BlurXterminator and…
Integration time (running total):
* OSC 100 X 300s (500m)
* Total: 8h00m
Still experimenting with the QHY268C. This image was much harder to process than anticipated with data from two nights.
Integration time:
* OSC 27 X 300s (135m)
* Total: 2h15m
Still testing and familiarising myself with the QHY268C, this time on another dark-sky (or should I say cloudy-sky) trip to Bortle Class 3 mid-Wales.
Integration time:
* 174 x 60s (2h54m)
* Total: 2h45m
19th November 2022 The current long run of cloudy skies has freed up a bit of time to catch with some processing and experimentation. The latest image is properly calibrated and processed with Bill Blanshan’s Pixinsight script for Hubble pallet images using OSC data.
Integration time (running total):
* OSC 25 x 300s (125m)
* Total: 125m/2h05m
Test of new OSC camera and filter.
Integration time (running total):
* Blue 40 x 300s (200m)
* Ha 86 x 300s (430m)
* OSC 71 x 300s (355m)
* Total: 985m/16h25m
Integration time target
* Target: 20 hours
* Progress: 82%
9th October 2022 I switched to use the ASI294MC Pro while the mono camera was being used for testing on the refractor. One or two frames were lost but otherwise a whole night’s imaging with excellent guiding has added some dual-band colur frames to the mix. I’m not…
9th October 2022 After lots of tweaking and testing on Windows 10 and 11, the issues with the focusser finally seem to be resolved. I wish I could say definitively why the focussers hadn’t worked on either of the rigs but the common factor in the solution in both cases was new, high-quality micro USB to USB A cables and connecting to USB 3.0 ports rather then USB 2 ports. The takeaway from this is not to swap equipment between set-ups in Windows for fear of upsetting the flaky and…
Integration time:
* 291 x 120s (9h42m)
16th September 2022 Whilst monitoring the observatory imaging this evening I had the chance to process the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula from last month. Processed as SHO from an OSC image.
Trip in September to Mid-Wales Bortle class 3
11th September 2022 Evidently far more integration time is needed the the meagre 2h48m I managed to salvage from the trip. Still, this makes a reasonable start and allows some improved framing choices to be made for the next attempt on this target. I also think that the stars would benefit from the use of the Astronomik L3 filter to reduce star bloat.
Integration time:
* SII 38 x 300s (190m)
* Ha 50 x 300s (465m)
* OIII 134 x 300s (670m)
* Total: 1325m/22h05m
9th August 2022 Gathered more Ha data to take total integratime time over 20 hours. Only two dropped frames on a night of varying transprency where I nearly closed the observatory prior to imaging because of the amount of approaching cloud. I decided to let it run and let NINA handle re-centring etc should it be required. Now ready for processing.
12th August 2022 With two imaging rigs up and running I had the fortune of a Friday evening, clear and warm on the night of the Perseid meteor shower peak (ZHR 80). Few meteors were seen as the full was full tonight but Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon were resplendent. The newly acquired cassegrain telescope (F12, 6", 1836mm focal length) performed wonderfully.
