M16: Halfway there! (Ha)

[Uranium235]

Okay... I'm glad I still might be able to help out...

I've offered a bribe to Cloudbuster (who lives about 20 miles away and captured M16 recently) to invite me to his site - Apparently it'll probably cost me a sausage sandwich, reggae reggae sauce and a beer and I think I can stretch to that...

Hopefully our diaries and the clear skies will co-operate and then I'll be able to have a go.

Mmmmm.... sausages

Sounds like you found yourself a nice place to set up then, looking forward to seeing this in HST pallete. I think those darker blobs will be much improved by a good dose of SII, and hopefully the overall image will have enough depth to give it a good stretch and sharpen.

Are you going to SGL7? Its not far from where I am so its a cert that I'll be going. It would be the perfect place for a proper co-op (and not just in NB either)

[mike_777]

wow!

[ollypenrice]

The O111 has really worked out well.

I'm still thinking about Martin's point on the guiding. So for someone on the terrestrial equator, imaging the Celestial Equator on the Zenith, the guiding would still be difficult? Hadn't thought of that. Maybe what we get is a double whammy since the low seeing also takes its toll on the guiding.

Olly

[Uranium235]

Cheers Olly!

I cant imagine guiding at the zenith being more diffucult than guiding near the horizon, first reason being that guide stars at the zenith will remain clear affected less by changes in seeing conditions. Having said that, the deliberate imbalance of the dec axis becomes less effective in reducing backlash the nearer I point to the zenith. A case of swings and roundabouts methinks

Its looking pretty clear for tonight, so hopefully i can have a go at M8. Hmmm... but looking at stellarium, it looks like it might be a bit of a no-go for tonight (Moon right next to it). So it looks like a "plan B", probably another bash at the Wizard.

[AndyUK]

Hi Uranium

Are you going to SGL7? Its not far from where I am so its a cert that I'll be going.

It's only about 2 hours away frome me, but unfortunately I don't have any camping gear... I might be able to pop up for an all-nighter one afternoon though (if that's permitted by the site?).

PS I think I missed a couple of clear nights this week due to work taking me to where the clouds were over the last couple of days and of course the weather now looks crud again . Hopefully next week will be kind...

[Tom OD]

Lovely and smooth, lots of detail and contrast, and off course round stars! As for the guiding its all been said, but if you want to check your guiding, or forget about anything you were worrying about during the imaging, point the scope higher after you finish guiding in the low south and watch the guiding get tight as a nut. As Olly said I'm imaging in this area, and have been tempted to pull the mount apart, with values of approx 0.12-0.15. However I go north or high in the east and without anything other than a restart of the guiding, its back to the <0.10's often way lower.

Tom.

[dc509]

Awesome image

[Uranium235]

Lovely and smooth, lots of detail and contrast, and off course round stars! As for the guiding its all been said, but if you want to check your guiding, or forget about anything you were worrying about during the imaging, point the scope higher after you finish guiding in the low south and watch the guiding get tight as a nut. As Olly said I'm imaging in this area, and have been tempted to pull the mount apart, with values of approx 0.12-0.15. However I go north or high in the east and without anything other than a restart of the guiding, its back to the <0.10's often way lower.

Tom.

Thanks Tom,

Yep, I noticed exactly that the other night when I tried to get M8, which is getting into the realms of pretty difficult for me... its lower than a whale do-do. The dec graph was all over the shop so I swung round to the wizard in the northwest and all of a sudden the PHD graph had quite a sexy look to it

Someone has since suggested I increase my exposure time in PHD to 3s to average out the seeing, so I'll give it a shot and see how I get on.