Catching Iris by surprise

[squeaky]

Lots of time spent cloud dodging last night.

The only reasonable patch of sky was right over the top of my house - not exactly a good angle. Most of the time the target I chose in there was mixed in with my old TV aerial. Permanent high haze with lots of wispy cloud about, so not too good there, and then the whole lot lit up by a very bright full moon which for much of the night wasn't troubled by cloud.

The only reason I was out there was to check clutch friction on my dob, guidance and tracking and I wasn't really expecting to see much in the way of nebulosity (NGC 7023 the Iris Nebula) so I was quite surprised to get this:-

On the left hand side just below the midline, the brighter of the two stars is Mag 10,45 and the fainter one is Mag 15.5 so I have no idea just what Mag the faintest stars in there are. That's the result of only 9 x 30 sec subs so I'm going to have to revisit this one now in a good sky to see what my kit can really do here.

Tracking, btw, was much better until my target hit 72 deg and then it went loopy, so I need to give the clutch friction just another slight tweak upwards; but surely but slowly I'm getting there. I think I need to re-register my encoders too - so more serious cloud dodging coming up

[Gina]

Very good bit of cloud dodging there And well done on the image

I'm still working on my camera cooling but it always seems to be cloudy here anyway. I went out about 11:15 last night to take the dog out and it was mostly cloudy with a waning moon peeking through strips of cloud. What would usually be classed as a nice night but not for astronomy

[squeaky]

Same for me last night.

But the idea was checking friction etc. You might recall that I mentioned water in my AZ motor/encoder unit? Harrumph! Started star alignment, got Polaris OK as star one but when it slewed for star two it just kept on going round in circles. More like the Magic Roundabout than a mount! Stripped it down, opened up the encoder... POURED OUT some more water... carefully dried and cleaned everything... still got a magic roundabout.

Just about to ring my retailer...

Anyway... what blew me away was seeing any of the nebula at all through well lit haze, not to mention that when the wispy cloud came through and I could barely pick out a Mag 1 star with my eye - the scope and camera were still able to image that Mag 10 star. Do what? Not to mention, on those nine frames, still through haze lit by my local LP and the full moon, I have stars that must be what...? mag 18? in there. So I'm now dead keen to see what sort of result I can get on a good night and from a better site than my home site.

Right. Must get on to the phone.