What can you do in an hour and a half?

[ollypenrice]

Something bright!

The house had given up and gone to bed last Thursday because the cloud wouldn't lift. However, I woke up at about half past one to find it was clear and, knowing that Pompey Monkey and his good lady wanted M42, I got to work on it using the Tandem Tak rig. (A pair of FSQ106Ns with Atik and SX full format CCDs.)

There was no time for luminance since I suspected that the morning valley mist would rise early so I shot in RGB on both scopes. In one I did sets of 10 minutes per colour and on the other the 'Trapezium shorts' of 12 seconds and 50 seconds. I then caught some more 10 minute subs before the mist did indeed rise and close us down.

Working with rather a short data set was fun and an interesting challenge. The Layer Masking process I used followed the excellent Jerry Lodigruss tutorial which I'd highly recommend.  (In CS3 the way to get the two layer image to show is to go WIndow-Arrange-New Window For...)

Anyway, after wringing it's neck here we go...

Olly and Pompey Monkey

PS Sorry, I forgot the link to the Jerry Lodigruss tutorial. http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/LAYMASK.HTM

[Phillyo]

Well that's pretty spectacular for just an hour and a half. It's pretty spectacular all around if i'm honest!

Phil

[wxsatuser]

Nice dusty shorty.

What can I do in 90minutes, mainly look at clouds.

[PhotoGav]

Now you know what it feels like to try and image in the UK... Cloud, no time, fog, projects with too little data, etc. etc.

That's a half decent M42 - not up to the usual Les Granges standard, but decent given the circumstances! Certainly better than no data.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

1h30m? I think my record integration time is only a few minutes more than that. Should we take that as a challenge?

Nice M42 Olly, that's the same tutorial I used to finally tame the core on my version.

[Mr Spock]

Nice looking image as always. That's a great tutorial and you can see the results.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Now you know what it feels like to try and image in the UK... Cloud, no time, fog, projects with too little data, etc. etc.

Yes, I have a lot of images around the 40 minutes mark because that's often how long it takes for my camera lenses to fog up.

[cfpendock]

Well, to be fair, for most of us without a tandem rig, surely this equates to three hours rather than an hour and a half....  

Nevertheless, a pretty outstanding image, as expected from this source!!

Chris

[ollypenrice]

Well, to be fair, for most of us without a tandem rig, surely this equates to three hours rather than an hour and a half....  

Nevertheless, a pretty outstanding image, as expected from this source!!

Chris

Sure. It's not quite three hours total data, more like  2.4 hours, the last part slightly moon-affected. I regard the tandem as one instrument, though. We went for this rather than for a faster single astrograph because of the greater consistency and reliability of refractors.

Olly

[Starfisher]

nice done, hope it will get clear here ase well tonight

[xtreemchaos]

mindblowing, amazing image. well done. thanks for sharing  charl.

[uhb1966]

Yes, I have a lot of images around the 40 minutes mark because that's often how long it takes for my camera lenses to fog up.

Hello dear knight, have you tried to heat your camera lenses (probably a noob question)?

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Hello dear knight, have you tried to heat your camera lenses (probably a noob question)?

Yes, with varying levels of success. I tried a travel hairdryer attached to a battery pack but it was pretty feeble, it did clear the lens after a minute or so but because the barrel of the lens is cold it just fogs up again within 10 or 15 minutes. I do have a dew band and controller now but discovered that the battery pack I'm using isn't very good and quickly runs down, so currently I have to turn it on at the right time.

I've also tried taking subs on different night but have had problems stacking the results, especially with wide-angle lenses.

[uhb1966]

Yes, with varying levels of success. I tried a travel hairdryer attached to a battery pack but it was pretty feeble, it did clear the lens after a minute or so but because the barrel of the lens is cold it just fogs up again within 10 or 15 minutes. I do have a dew band and controller now but discovered that the battery pack I'm using isn't very good and quickly runs down, so currently I have to turn it on at the right time.

I've also tried taking subs on different night but have had problems stacking the results, especially with wide-angle lenses.

Because of all the power issues, i have so far refrained from imaging outside of my garden :/

[swag72]

Looks like one and a half hours well spent

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Because of all the power issues, i have so far refrained from imaging outside of my garden :/

lukebl has a good improvised anti-dew solution in this thread (post #4) that might interest you. I also find that some nights are much better than others for dew, checking the dew point on Clear Outside can be worthwhile.