First Night Out In Months Cut Short By Cloud

[russellhq]

Well, the forecast was for a clear night, but the weather had different ideas.

Anyway, at least I managed to test my new narrowband filters. Here's 2 off 20min subs, calibrated with flats and bias of the Elephant's Trunk nebula. This is my first time capturing and processing narrowband data (complicated by the fact I have a OSC camera), bit it looks OK so far. Just need clear skies so I can capture more data and try another filter as well.

[laser_jock99]

Good test the equipment at least? Fingers crossed for more clear nights.

[russellhq]

Yeah, I was a bit rusty getting things set up so made a good trial run at least. 

As I don't have a filter wheel, I tried out my plan for changing filters. I've got the Baader click lock, and the FLO adapter on the reducer. So the filter sits at the end. What I did was slacken the click lock, slide out the camera and reducer assembly and screw off the filter. It turned out to be a lot more precarious than I would have liked. So I think I'll give that a miss a stick to 1 filter a night (or buy a new toy). 

[Astroscot2]

What happened to the promised clear skies all night.

Done pretty much the same as yourself Russell.  Skies went milky around midnight before I got a chance to do an imaging run, wanted to test software, filters and have a play with my

mount that Ive have had a chance to use twice since last December.  Im way out of practice ...

Mark

[ultranova]

Your off to a good start anyway,

Im sure if the cloud had not decided to end play it would have been

a cracking image,

at least you got the dust off the gear.

Well done

Paul

[russellhq]

Thanks folks. I am quite chuffed with this image as it's the faintest detail I've been able to pick up. I'd almost written off my observing site (garden) to light pollution here in the middle of Glasgow, but the NB filters seem to be doing a top job! Now I just need to figure out how to process them properly!

[russellhq]

Looks like there's another promised night of clear skies tonight. Might change out the filter for the OIII and grab some more data while the moon is away.

[russellhq]

Out with the scope and no clouds but I think there's some haze or something as the sky looks rather orange

:-(

[Thalestris24]

Thanks folks. I am quite chuffed with this image as it's the faintest detail I've been able to pick up. I'd almost written off my observing site (garden) to light pollution here in the middle of Glasgow, but the NB filters seem to be doing a top job! Now I just need to figure out how to process them properly!

Hi Russell

Same here!!! I'm going to try NB next session. The LP is holding me back!

Thanks for posting these - you've inspired me now!

Louise

[russellhq]

All the best Louise! The sky seems to have cleared up a bit and I've managed to get 8 off 20 min OIII subs. Will see how they process tomorrow.

[Thalestris24]

Hiya

Well, I decided to give it a go with an H-alpha... Trouble is I don't have a filter wheel so I've just tacked it on to my coma corrector. I really need a filterwheel! Can't use Astrotortilla without a clear filter in place I also get loads of hot pixels on the APT screen? Oh well, will see what I can do.

Cheers

Louise

[Pete Presland]

an excellent start, plenty of detail there already.

[russellhq]

an excellent start, plenty of detail there already.

Thanks!

I was surprised about the amount of detail in such a relatively short exposure. I tried the OIII filter last night and didn't get anywhere near as much detail and also had a lot more noise: and that was with 4 times more data!

[russellhq]

Hiya

Well, I decided to give it a go with an H-alpha... Trouble is I don't have a filter wheel so I've just tacked it on to my coma corrector. I really need a filterwheel! Can't use Astrotortilla without a clear filter in place I also get loads of hot pixels on the APT screen? Oh well, will see what I can do.

Cheers

Louise

I also struggled with Astrotortilla last light. I forgot to do a 3 star alignment before trying to sync to my target. I've found that if I don't solve any sync points before trying to sync to my target, AT cannot solve the image. But if I sync a large triangle around my target and then sync my target it works much better if that makes sense!

How did you get on last night, did you manage to get any subs?

Russell

[Thalestris24]

I also struggled with Astrotortilla last light. I forgot to do a 3 star alignment before trying to sync to my target. I've found that if I don't solve any sync points before trying to sync to my target, AT cannot solve the image. But if I sync a large triangle around my target and then sync my target it works much better if that makes sense!

How did you get on last night, did you manage to get any subs?

Russell

Hi

I couldn't use Astrotortilla because of the exposure times required with the 7nm - like 30s just to pick up a bright star.. Still, thankfully my gotos are quite good anyway and was able to use eqmod to nudge the scope a little. I don't use sync points - just AT, normally. I managed a couple of 1200s subs though they still need severe stretching to bring up nebulosity. For some reason, my APT crashed in the middle of one and in the end I had to switch the PC off in order to get communication back with my qhy8l. I hope that was just a rare glitch... Oh well, and nothing doing now for at least the rest of the week by the looks of it.

Cheers

Louise

[Astroscot2]

I could see a haze to the North East of Glasgow but it never seemed to creep over my way. Turned out not too bad of a night although I did just sit watchig the guide corrections on the screen.

I managed 6 x 20 min subs on NAN but focus looks a little soft.  glad to hear others were out enjoying the sky, look forward to seeing your images

Mark

[russellhq]

Hi

I couldn't use Astrotortilla because of the exposure times required with the 7nm - like 30s just to pick up a bright star.. Still, thankfully my gotos are quite good anyway and was able to use eqmod to nudge the scope a little. I don't use sync points - just AT, normally. I managed a couple of 1200s subs though they still need severe stretching to bring up nebulosity. For some reason, my APT crashed in the middle of one and in the end I had to switch the PC off in order to get communication back with my qhy8l. I hope that was just a rare glitch... Oh well, and nothing doing now for at least the rest of the week by the looks of it.

Cheers

Louise

I was using it with my QHY8L with 10-20s exposures, but I had it set to BIN4 and that seemed to work. I used the astrometry website to solve the image first to get the pixelscale parameter for AT.

[Thalestris24]

Hi Russell

Ah bin4 would have been brighter but I figure having a filterwheel would be better for AT. Do you get a screenfull of hot pixels with the qhy8l? I do

Louise

[russellhq]

I can't say I've noticed many. I have the cooler set to -20C when I'm imaging.

I think it will also depend on how you've set the histogram in you're viewing software. It might make the problem look worse than it is.

I know that there was an issue with the QHY8L ASCOM driver that was causing a lot of hot pixels and this was fixed in an update. Are you running the latest drivers from the website?

I've been looking at filterwheels recently. There's a nice looking manual 2" one on Moderastronomy and 365Astronomy that I might get. (Cost is around £100).

[Thalestris24]

Hiya

I've been running mine at a mere  -5 deg C - I should drop that really... But yes, that's with on-screen stretching - I wouldn't see anything without. The qhy8l driver history has certainly be problematic... The Ascom qhy8l driver I have was installed on April 3rd 2014 and appears to be v3.2. I think that's the most recent working one?

If I attach a filter wheel it will have to fit with the coma corrector spacing so I'll have to do some measuring...

Cheers

Louise

[algol]

Recently in my neck of the woods even when the skies are predicted clear there does seem to be this mistyNess to the view. Which of course glows closer down to the horizon

[russellhq]

Had a go processing the OIII data from yesterday. It's so much noisier than the Ha data even when I have 2hrs 40mins of it vs 40mins of Ha.

Well here it is:

I was going for a blue like in the image below from a fellow user, but I just couldn't get it to work and ended up with a sort of pinkish colour: