You know its been a good night when.......

[Tim]

...You start imaging just after 6pm, and finish up just after 6am the following morning

(even better when you are imaging at 2850mm focal length and dont lose a single sub, even when they are 1500 seconds long )

Not only that, Saturn, Venus and Mercury are all lined up like soldiers, and to cap it all, just finished off with a meteor going through them!

Hope everybody else had a great night too? (Sorry about the cloud Wales:s)

Tim

[ronin]

You are just trying to wind everyone up, and you are not really sorry about the cloud in Wales. :icon_rendeer: :icon_rendeer:

Get cold ??

[allcart]

I humbly bow to your superior imaging, guiding, scope , skies and dogged determination. I had 4hrs before I called it a night.

Hope you got some really cool stuff to show us soon.

[JamesF]

Hang on, your location says Coventry. An entire clear night in Coventry? Another SGL user is taken in by an unusually vivid dream...

James

[Tim]

Get cold ??

Got a little chilly this morning doing flats between 6 and 8am, but the warm room in my little obsy is usually around 5 or 6 degrees above ambient, and of course the electric blanket on my bed where I control everything from my phone was ever so cosy Even managed around 4 hours sleep.

We could actually watch the clouds working their way down over Wales, and some of them came perilously close before the higher pressure area dispersed them, but I never image in the West or much past the zenith so thankfully there seemed no interruption through the night.

I started with a session on NGC206 in M31, haven't done that before and was pleasantly surprised with the results, resolution was in theory 0.43 arcsec/pixel with no binning, probably could have used 2x2 with no loss of resolution but I wanted to get a full frame on the little cluster, and will definitely be going back for more luminance and colour.

As Andromeda passed overhead I went back to the Crab Nebula and grabbed the 1500 sec subs in Sii I need to complete my 'close-up' project on that I have been gathering data for a couple of months bit by bit.

And then finally finished off with some decent subs on the tricky M109 in Ursa major. Such a pretty little galaxy which has so far evaded me because of wind, frosted corrector, or intermittent clouds. It's nice to have a target around 2am-ish that you know you can just leave to run while you sleep without fear of the mount going too far round, so I usually go for something in the Northern sky to wind up.

Thank goodness its Sunday and the option of a lie in

[Tim]

It was a good dream James

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/observations/coventry-airport#?tab=last24hours

[laser_jock99]

(even better when you are imaging at 2850mm focal length and dont lose a single sub, even when they are 1500 seconds long )

Tim

That's good going on an EQ6, I take it you were using the C11?

[Tim]

That's good going on an EQ6, I take it you were using the C11?

Yes, have to say i'm continually amazed at the results from the little EQ6 with such a heavy load on it. It did struggle a bit when we had that high wind the other night, the dewshield was poking out of the obsy a little and catching the gusts, and when I removed it the dew came on the corrector.

I'm saving for an EL panel to get some decent flats, and when I have that I'll start posting some results. I dont mind long haul projects, and when you image at F10, they need to be long haul!

[jonathan]

...you see what you went out to see. That's it.

[laser_jock99]

Yes, have to say i'm continually amazed at the results from the little EQ6 with such a heavy load on it. It did struggle a bit when we had that high wind the other night, the dewshield was poking out of the obsy a little and catching the gusts, and when I removed it the dew came on the corrector.

I'm saving for an EL panel to get some decent flats, and when I have that I'll start posting some results. I dont mind long haul projects, and when you image at F10, they need to be long haul!

I like the the idea of a long focal length scope- but I would probably stick the brighter subjects myself. I'm messing about at the other extreme at the moment (300mm F2.9) which although in theory offers faster imaging, has it's own chalenges.

BTW- do you work at Russells in Baggington? I ocassionally go there for plants.

[Tim]

Yep, say hello next time you drop in, I'm the one with bags under my eyes I dont know if you are into falconry, or know anybody who is, but our resident Falconer has just acquired a Golden Eagle, quite a sight to see

There comes a point with the long focal lengths when the pay off isn't worth it. You need the patience of a saint imaging at F10, but binning 2x2 helps things along, and with the newer smaller pixel cameras like the Atik 428ex and 460ex you can bin 2x2 and still get a nice image.

You certainly see things in a different light, the Horsehead fills the whole frame, as does Melotte 15, even little NGC 206 in M31 is a large centrepiece. The other night I ran a few very short subs on the Trapezium in M42 and even though the skies were full of muck managed to pick out loads of the hidden stars there, and am actually hoping to get at least a pixel of the protoplanetary discs one of these nights!

It's clear again tonight here, although plenty of murkiness floating about, so just doing some subs for RGB stars for M1 and the other targets.

Cheers

Tim