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A Night of Horror at the Observatory


Alveprinsen

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So, I've prepared for tonight all day.

I got up at like 07:00 even though I am working the night-shift and starting at 14:30 in the afternoon.

I buy a bunch of stuff, new battery, extension cable, even a freaking new laptop with extra RAM so I can run Astro Tortilla and all my other software on ONE computer instead of two...

And so it begins...

1. Windows 8.1 on the new laptop... No further comment needed here. I installed a Windows 7 skin though, but still alot of annoying features.

2. Scope wont connect to my new laptop. After four hours I give up, and go back to my 2x computer setup. (I should have read THIS before going down to the observatory with my new laptop.) Windows 8 users... please download this driver............. a little too late...

3. My Do-It-Yourself Finder-guider was juuuust outside of focus.. So, I drive back up to the house, and get a freaking hand-saw.. Now I have focus.

4. PHD guiding wont track. not enough movement.. I increase from 750 to 2000 .... No luck... then I increase to 3500 ... Finally, it will track.

5. Now my timelapse cam on its Polarie startracking is acting up. Or rather, Polarie's portable power supply at some time decided to stop delivering power... So the timelapse is botched now... The gods only knows when it will stop again, seeing as it will continue to run until 06:00 at which time I will go down and check up on it.

Not to mention all the countless times I've driven back home, then down again, then home again, on and on because I managed to forget a USB cable, which turns out I didnt forget afterall but was ATTACHED to the thing it was supposed to be attached to. How I missed it - seeing as I am indeed not clincially blind (although one can start to wonder) I dont know... Or the Bahtinov mask... or the... or the .... the list goes on.

And then theres the batteries... and the cables... omg... one 60 Ah battery and two 30 Ah batteries, one 9Ah for the timelapse heating strip, one 15 Ah for the NEQ6 Pro mount, and one 12 Ah for the guiding scope heating strip... aaaand one 15000 mAh for the Polarie star tracker.

If the DSO imaging cam and timelapse cam sucks that 30Ah battery dry - I will seriously start contemplating suicide-by-staring-into-the-sun-with-a-huge-Dob....

At least this time I got NGC7023 in the middle of my scope, and if I'm lucky - perhaps focus wont shift....

Alveprinsen

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Honestly, so what more can go wrong now?!!!!

Fingers crossed for some success with the image results at least!

Battery shared by the timelapse EOS 700D and DSO imaging cam 600D went dead after only hour half.................................

Oh... and fog crept in.... so, last images are blurry as hell....

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Ok, an update....

Managed to stack those 2,5h of exposures I managed to get.

Images taken on: NEQ6 Pro guided by finder-guider Orion starshoot.

Camera: Modified and cooled Canon EOS 600D from CentralDS.

Scope: Skywatcher Explorer 200PDS

ISO: 1600

Here's a list of all the files, with time-stamp and temperature. Temperature looks nice. Chip running on -20 to -21 degrees C on 600 sec exposures. Ambient temperature outside was -0.5 C.

FileList

And here is the stacked and edited image. Needless to say, I need much much more data. This is nothing. And it seems that the flattener does not keep the scope vignette free. So I will have to start taking flat frames at least.

No calibration frames used for this image.

NGC7023JPG

At least now I got the driver for the mount installed on new laptop. Next time cameras wont run out of battery. Imaging cam and imaging laptop will be sharing the same 60Ah battery. :) And any time-lapse cam will have its own dedicated 30Ah battery.

Sincerely, Alveprinsen.

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If it were easy........

However, the result is looking potentially fantastic! It would be good to see a larger version, but from what I can see, the noise is really really well under control. Very promising! You definitely need to start doing flat frames, they will transform your images!

Keep at it, it's all a learning process - never a mistake, just a lesson!

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If it were easy........

However, the result is looking potentially fantastic! It would be good to see a larger version, but from what I can see, the noise is really really well under control. Very promising! You definitely need to start doing flat frames, they will transform your images!

Keep at it, it's all a learning process - never a mistake, just a lesson!

Yeah, I've got a flatfield panel and everything. I just didn't bother with it this time. I imagined the coma corrector would even things out sufficiently. I will remember to take it next time. Besides, camera was out of juice, so I wouldn't have been able to do any flats anyways.

Perhaps I'll do bias frames as well, just for the heck of it. Darks take too long though, and most likely I dont need'em with the chip running on -20 degrees C.

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I've had nights like that.

Maybe set some solar panels up at your observatory to keep your batteries topped up without having to worry about them?

Problem wasn't lack of power. Problem was that I had planned on using one computer instead of two, letting the imaging cam share a 60Ah battery with the laptop.

But since I was forced to using two computers, I had the two of them share the 60Ah battery, while the imaging and time-lapse cam shared a slightly used 30Ah battery. I had to use a 10m  outdoor extension cord from the 220v inverter to the timelapse cam. I suspect it was just too much for it.

As for solar panels... No way. They'd be covered in snow most of the time in winter, and in summer they wouldn't be used. Besides, it would only be a matter of time before they were stolen.

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'Nough to make one swear, lucky there's no sound track on the time lapse   :grin:

Dave

Yeah. Its been a frustrating night allright...

Next time though... I will be ready... well, if there IS a next time that is. Weather forecast is a total catastrophy. Not that it matters, the Moon will soon dominate the night sky.

Perhaps I'll get a narrowband filter, even though my camera is a color camera. Sure, I'll need four times the exposure time, but hell... its always clear when the moon is full. I could let my rig image for 10 hours straight some days. Accumulated - I'd have allot of exposures... :D

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Love the time lapse, really great. Thought that was the aurora coming in on the right, then realised it was just cloud :-( ! Interesting looking obsy/shed. Do you have pics / info about that?

Hah! Yeah, the clouds... Although Aurora Borealis would have been just as bad. Its good for... borealis photography.. but messes up everything else. :p

My glorified shed - which I like to call my observatory, or rather European Extremely Average telescope 2.0 - was designed by me on a yellow post-it a few months ago. I drew it up in 3D, made some drawings and had a couple of friends help me set it up.

Another timelapse and pictures of that can be found HERE.

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Alv,thats a great image considering your woes.

Applying gradient removal programm really made an astonishing difference to your image,so once you have your flats going,there will be no stopping you.

Mick.

I have applied no gradient removal. Only stretched it in Photoshop and used masking to bring out the core and not overexposing. I've used Lightroom to bring up clarity though... thats about it.

But yeah, looks like I need to at least take flat frames in the future. Might as well do bias frames as well since they are so fast. I can build up a dark-frame library as well I guess - although I suspect they will make little difference with chip running at -20 degrees. Later when it gets really cold outside. Like.. -15C to -25C - the camera will most likely run at a permanent -25 to -30 degrees C.

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Hiya

Wow! Awesome sky - so many stars!! I'm really envious!! :Envy:

Louise

After reading posts here on the forum, I truly pity those of you living in the UK.

Just a few minutes ago I read a post by this guy who was out with his scope, actually waiting for a patch of clear skies so he could image M42.

Personally - I dont even consider going out imaging unless I know for certain I have at LEAST six hours of continously clear skies. If I see hints of clouds, I dont even bother setting up. hehe :)

Guess I am spoiled by this un-British weather... hah! :D

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After reading posts here on the forum, I truly pity those of you living in the UK.

Just a few minutes ago I read a post by this guy who was out with his scope, actually waiting for a patch of clear skies so he could image M42.

Personally - I dont even consider going out imaging unless I know for certain I have at LEAST six hours of continously clear skies. If I see hints of clouds, I dont even bother setting up. hehe :)

Guess I am spoiled by this un-British weather... hah! :D

Hi

It's not just the clouds - where I am I don't see many stars by eye because of the city lp. I'm probably between 4.0 and 4.5 on the Bortle scale - nearer 4.0, I'd say :( Even a 7nm Ha lets noticeable amounts of lp through. Sigh.

Louise

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Hi

It's not just the clouds - where I am I don't see many stars by eye because of the city lp. I'm probably between 4.0 and 4.5 on the Bortle scale - nearer 4.0, I'd say :( Even a 7nm Ha lets noticeable amounts of lp through. Sigh.

Louise

I see.

I dont know where on this scale you speak of my location would be. The timelapse is taken with a Canon EOS 700D unmodded but with a Astronomik EOS clip-in LP filter though. So it would probably look a little worse without. There is quite the LP here as well.

A few weeks ago I was trekking in the mountains with a friend of mine. Now THERES some good quality sky! :D

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I see.

I dont know where on this scale you speak of my location would be. The timelapse is taken with a Canon EOS 700D unmodded but with a Astronomik EOS clip-in LP filter though. So it would probably look a little worse without. There is quite the LP here as well.

A few weeks ago I was trekking in the mountains with a friend of mine. Now THERES some good quality sky! :D

Hi

I'm going by this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bortle_scale

Louise

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