CCD first use advice

[nightster]

My 460 mono was delivered yesterday and the forecast look good to go tonight. I will have some work making sure everything is functioning together. But if I do get it all working correctly what shold be my first target or type of target? No reason for me to attempt something that is more difficult than my skillet at this point. I have a full set of lrgb and NB filters.

[nightster]

Smartphone autocorrect sheesh, skillet=skillset.

[jambouk]

What scope are you using? What will be the field of view? Are you guiding? Have you done any imaging before? Do you want to have a got at RGB tonight or just some mono?

James

[nightster]

80/480 triple. EQ6, guided, been imaging a year with DSLR. FOV is 1.49 x 1.19. Really just want to get some data. I suppose just shooting L would be smart to just get it all working.

[Chris]

Yeah I agree, just concentrate on getting some L to learn your way around the camera, you can always add RGB later

What do you fancy; Galaxies, nebs, PN's ??

[jambouk]

M81 / M82?

[nightster]

I was thinking about doing M81/82 again.  I think it was my 3rd image, and the first that I was really excited to show friends and family. But I was still sorting out equipment and software, etc...  And looking at Stellarium its about at Zenith.  Also looks like M51, Sunflower, C35 looks like fun, M3.  But in the end I think the Leo Triplet will have to be it. Haven't captured it before.  FOV is about right. I don't have the FL for real galaxy hunting but good to cut my teeth on something new. 

[jambouk]

Look forward to seeing the results. Be prepared for the unexpected problems though; drivers, frezes, calibration failure, dewing up, accidentally powering it all down... Fingers crossed it goes well.

James

[MattJenko]

When I got my CCD, I went for star clusters. They do not require long subs (or many of them), show up focus issues easily, and are easy to find. They are also a challenge to get right, so were a good intro for me into finding my feet with all the extra permutations and things to learn when doing mono + filters both in the capture space and the processing space.

[nightster]

I was a bit rusty as we haven't had any even marginally good weather since December. My new 80 amp hour deep cycle battery is much heavier but no more worries about low voltage issues. The filters seated nicely in their brand new home in the SX usb FW. The flattener and spacers all threaded together perfectly. Some adjustments to FW nose and tail pieces so the FW and CCD were orientated correctly. Spent some time with the USB cords, I had previously purchased 90 degree Startech cables to limit chance of strain on the soldered connnections. A handfull of those velcro cable management strips bound the cables nicely. A few feet of plastic coiled wire loom bound the 3 USB cables together down to their home (CCD, FW, Guidecam.) BTW I plugged the FW and Guider to a hub but the CCD has it own home directly on laptop, not sure if that matters but better to not have to debug that one. The software and driver where all previously installed and except for checking the FW last week I had not had a dry run of this upgrade.

Really it was just my inexperience with this software set and the waves of clouds every 30 minutes that kept me from getting a full nights data but I have to report that everything worked properly. AstroTortilla works better than with BYEOS Using the ASCOM camera option. It is weird not hearing the mirror rachet but it is so much faster. Messing around trying to find focus was more difficult because the BYEOS focusing helper was second nature to me. I ended up only getting 5 360s subs of M95 but I did get some flats and the APT flats helper is amazing. I fumbled several times with the cooler because during the cloud moments I would switch between Artemis and APT to see how they worked.

I haven't been able to process them yet but just to have any data, and boy is it clean data, I have to consider last night a success.

[nightster]