going great guns tonight!!!

[rocketandroll]

So... who else is making the best of the awesome conditions tonight?

I am already three targets into a truly marathon session and (touch wood) so far things are going very well.

I started the evening with half an hour or so of data on the Perseus double cluster... then shot over two hours on the veil (yes, its still high enough!)

Now I'm busy adding data to my M45...

Final target from about 11:00 onwards will be the Rosette nebula.

I've never managed this much in one night before!!!

I'm assuming this may be my last chance at clear, moon free skies before Christmas... so I want to grab everything I can!!!

Ben

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[RikM]

I'm having a pop at M45 tonight. I have a bit of broken cloud and the sky background is quite bright so I am only taking 3min subs. I have about an hour and a half in the can at the moment and am aiming to at least double that if the clouds stay away.

I have got the Dob out as well. The GRS (and companion) are well placed at the mo. 22.30UTC.

[RikM]

Ha ha ha...what a burk. I've just shot my first sub with a Bhatinov mask still on. I finished a run of 30 subs and the temp has dropped a few degrees so I checked the focus and then forgot to take the mask off.

It was only one sub and at least it's in focus.

[Sparrow]

Yep I'm having a long session with my newly modded camera. Dashing from target to target like a beginner really but anxious to see what the camera can now do. Main targets tonight:- IC63, M1 and now a quicky of IC434 before bedtime. Just had to demist the secondary - always a pain.

[Tim]

Yep, a good night so far Ben, two targets at least, I did a couple of hours on NGC891 and then to IC410 to get some narrowband data. As they are 30 mins subs I came inside to watch SCD, XF and IACGMOOH!

[Komet]

Well I have gathered 260 minutes of SII of IC410 to finish it.

I have changed over from the Mak Newt to the little WO66 and am now shooting some test stuff of M42 in Ha. (Live atm)

Good night!

BIG EDIT ..... I have thin cloud up there now. 8-((

[steppenwolf]

I'm having to 'squander' a fab sky on review gear rather than shoot my own work but I am grateful for the clear sky at last!

[carastro]

Yup Ben,

I'm planning to stay up all night if it stays clear.

My aim for the next couple of months is to really get to grips with APT and guiding and dithering in APT. I have not found this as easy as Canon Utility but it has a lot of good features so my personal aim tonight was do image with APT.

I've done a couple of hours (I think) on M45 using APT.

Then moved to the Iris nebula to do a few test shots (I know I really have to wait for a dark sky, but just wanted to see how big it was in the FOV etc so I know for when I do it for real. This is when the problems started to creep in. I was doing a few darks while I changed object and recalibrated PHD and then set it off to do about 5 images on IRIS. Went back half hour later to find I had left the lens cap on and just done a further set of darks

So repeated Iris AGAIN and mugged up on PHD with APT.

Started Horse head and all looked to be going well, APT said that it was dithering, and then it all got stuck. Annoyingly wasted a further 15 minutes trying to sort it all out, losing images and imaging time.

Anyhow decided to abandon further use tonight of APT as can't waste any more imaging time, and am now chugging away at the Horsehead.

Beginning of evening was also frustrated with UVNC not working properly. I can see what's going on outside, but can't seem to work anything from indoors, so have had to position all softwares so I can see what's going on in one glance.

All very annoying when you wait so long for a clear sky.

Not going to let it beat me though.

Carole

[jgs001]

I'm currently doing some deep sky for the first time since April... amazingly I managed to remember how to set everything up. Shooting M45... just the one target tonight, and trying out a FF/FR on the 80ED.

[steppenwolf]

Unfortunately, I had to give into the clouds at just gone 3:05 but not a bad run really. Hope you all made good use if this unexpected clear sky and what a gorgeous thin sliver of a Moon there was earlier in the evening too!

[MikeD]

I ran 7 and 3/4 hours on a two pain section of the flaming star neb (IC405) in Ha.

Mike.

[rocketandroll]

Well... had to cut things short when I was called home just after 11:00pm as my little one wasn't well... but still managed another 50 minutes or so on M45, almost two and a half hours on the Veil and half an hour or so on the double cluster... an absolute record for me.

PHD/EQmod did some wierd things through the night... found I had to re-start my laptop each time I changed subjects and took the mount out of PC-Direct mode otherwise it'd never start guiding again... but got that down to about a 3 - 4 minute operation between targets which wasn't bad in the end.

Pretty flat graphs all night (when it was working)... all in all, including problems, looks like I got about 5 out of 6 on the 6 minut subs through the night... not too bad at all.

Gonna start processing it all this afternoon.

Ben

[themos]

A new approach last night with Clifford: Since we have a CoStar guide camera and a TS OAG, why not let the doublet 80/480 have some photons too, alongside the triplet 80/480? In the black corner, just managing to fit in the guidescope rings, the Revelation doublet is struggling valiantly, without a field flattener or dew strap, to herd CLS-friendly photons onto a Canon 1000D sensor. In the white corner, the Meade 5000 triplet is leading the way, all snug and warm, directing flattened and CLS-clipped photons to their destination somewhere on the Canon 450D's sensor. The image was taken at around 10pm last night so you can tell what the target is.

[Quatermass]

Had a great night last night such a joy to get out there and not see a single cloud come along to spoil the view. Suspect that will be the last clear night until christmas though so made the most of it while I could and got a good capture of Galaxy 891 and some more subs on the horse head. The owls injoyed my company they hooted away all night whooooo is that twit a whooo down there with the telescope

[Quatermass]

Ha ha ha...what a burk. I've just shot my first sub with a Bhatinov mask still on. I finished a run of 30 subs and the temp has dropped a few degrees so I checked the focus and then forgot to take the mask off.

It was only one sub and at least it's in focus.

LOL I have done that as well gives you some lovely star spikes though