Wiu-Wiu

I thought the clear nights were over, so I put my setup away before the bad weather rolled in... just to see that I must have checked a default location. It was another clear night here, so I quickly put the Esprit 120 in action. Took 100 subs, but threw away 7, totaling 93 x 300s or 7hrs 45 min. Asi 071mc, IDAS D1, Cem 60. I must have screwed up the meridian flip settings in the Asiair pro, because when I started it immediately wanted to flip, then said it was going to flip in 12 hours.. Strange. I assisted the flip manually, and had no troubles for the rest of the night. Full picture: crop:

Did some reprocessing to try and get a bit more out of it:

Some of my best guiding yet, and an absolute victory for the CEM60 for handling the C11 that well! 0.5" RMS error - never saw my setup guiding this well. A gust of wind or a lost cloud must have thrown it off track around 2 am, so I only got 5 hours worth of data. I'll add more on a later date, this one needs at least 10 hours more from my SQM 19.2 skies.

Made a little animation of its motion too.

129 x 300s (10h45) integration. Stack in APP, processed in PI.

First try to integrate A LOT of subs. I do need an automatic focuser now. Waiting for ZWO to integrate autofocus in the asiair pro... Esprit 120 on CEM11, asi 071mc pro. 170x300s or 14 hours and 20 minutes worth of data. I'm working on a new integration with a tighter selection (129 subs or 10hrs 45) , curious if that one gives a better result.

thanks! I process comets in Pixinsight Batch preprocessing with darks and flats, cometalignment, image integration, auto histogram, histogram transformation, curves. Just eyeballling, really.

Last night, march 24, with Esprit 120 - 55x60s

Due to gusts of wind, I had to bench the C11 edge and put the esprit 120 on the cem 60 mount. The ASIAIR PRO had some issues with the auto meridian flip with off axis guiding on the C11, I was curious if the larger FOV with the esprit and his guidescope would give the same problem. It didn't! I woke up in time to see the mount pauze, flip, recenter, validate, and just went on with the lights. When I woke up this morning, the scope was parked and shut off. NICE! 99 subs of 300s, calibrated and stacked in APP, processed in PI. camera: asi 071 mc pro I can't wait until ZWO releases autofocus...

I think that's exactly what I did. Everything up to the first stacked and unstretched image in APP, I then just crop, autohistogram, histogram transformation, curves and color saturation in PI.

I think PI has more trouble to align data pre- and post-meridian flip. APP does it way better.

None taken, it has been months since I processed static data, (clouds), and I have done more comets lately. I'm super rusty I did do another process: stacking in APP and postprocess in PI, that usually gives me a bit more color and detail.

Messier 106 - 49x300s with C11 Edge on cem 60. Test with asiair pro from SQM 19,2 skies.

I managed to get my gear out last night and this comet was on the top of my list. C11 Edge on CEM 60, asi 071mc pro 30x60s 30x120s

It has been estimated at M8 - M9 recently, so it is brighter than the software is stating it is.

Situation at my house is getting worse by the day. I live in the town center, next to a big train station and a sports park. Light pollution is getting worse, and now the city lights will be "upgraded" to LED, the orange glow is changing to white/grey. City has no ears to my input about poorly adjusted LED. Having a fixed observatory in the garden will have to wait until I move away somewhere in the far future. I'll have to make the best out of the situation until then. That's why I have installed a pier, so I can setup a scope and cover it, leaving it outside a couple of days at a time. It will save time in setting up and cleaning up when done. Now, I have been thinking about building a remote setup in a dark location. I could put one of my scopes there, and take pictures whenever it's clear. The location is accessible to me (couple of hours away) and sits on a private property, so there is someone there if needed. Should I walk down this path? I'd love to see some input before starting something and realising it's too costly or doesn't work halfway down the road...

Not sure you can see it, but there's one here, made on jan. 1st: https://www.astroforum.nl/forum/astrofotografie/astrofoto-s-zonnestelsel/1436745-komeet-pan-starrs-c-2017-t2-1-januari-2020

Here's a sketch by a friend in a 10" dob: You need to beware that the pup often hides right next to a spike. Maybe that's what's throwing you off?

Afraid so.. but I've seen reports of seeing it through a 150mm achromat..

I've been able to see it in my 12" dob last year but it needed perfect collimation, excellent eyepieces, and most of all: a perfect seeing.

you mean reducer? Yeah, that one costs an arm and a leg. I don't have it, the CEM handles it well at 2800mm

I'd say they are optically quite similar. I haven't gotten the chance yet to compare pictures of the same object. ACF: (crop) C11: Both on the CEM60. I think the weight issue is the real factor in this equasion. The Edge is just flying, while the ACF 'hangs' on the mount.

I'd say refractor > reflector any day, but the higher focal length makes smaller targets possible for my mount. I see you have a CEM60 - I have one too, AND I own a 10" ACF. One advice: consider the C11 Edge!! I upgraded from the Meade and never looked back. The Meade is now used for visual only so I don't have to change the back all too often. The 10" ACF is possible on the CEM, but the C11 is lighter.

It's a very interesting experiment, I always wing it, but having a more reliable baseline would be awesome. I recently got myself a SQ meter, and will do a measurement with every sketch, just to get that basic figure in. You might want to browse deepskylog.org to compare sketches. it also takes 'contrast reserve' into account for your location, that could help calculating... For M51: there are 67 sketches in the database: here

They are quite dark, especially for Bortle 7 skies I usually mix a bit of red hue into the background when digitalising sketches from lightpolluted areas. Raising the blue tones might also help to make it a bit more lively. (I am also switching to more blue as the LED invasion has started here, and skies are getting grayer)