My first M31 / first light with Atik 383L+

[x6gas]

I'm a bit embarassed to post this to be honest. I set my rig up last night but there was a problem with my autoguiding so quite bad star trailing with these 180 second subs...

BUT I am so impressed with the Atik. This image is 50 L subs at 180 secs - star trailing on all of them so I didn't reject any. Minimal process in DSS; no darks (didn't seem worth it given the poor quality of the lights and I've yet to build up a dark library...) didn't bother adding in the RGB either...

So no great shakes but given all of the above I'm very optimistic for the future with this camera...

[x6gas]

Oh and really poorly framed too... but I'm just learning here!

[NickK]

You got all three in the frame

Have you had a look at the V method using the CCD to polar align? Guiding is good but to be honest I think it works best if it only needs todo a small amount of adjustment.

You've not burnt out the core, so given a few more outings and you'll have some cracking shots

[x6gas]

You got all three in the frame :)

Have you had a look at the V method using the CCD to polar align? Guiding is good but to be honest I think it works best if it only needs todo a small amount of adjustment.

You've not burnt out the core, so given a few more outings and you'll have some cracking shots

Yeah, I'm sure you're right... but last night it wasn't guiding at all. Bit of an embarassing user error and I feel like I wasted a good night a bit. Still, all part of the learning curve!

Haven't heard of the V method, but I'll Bing it to see what I can learn...

Cheers, Ian