What to do on a moon-lit night

[MattJenko]

Experiment!

Here is my kit set up for trying things out tonight.

RC6 with a StarAnalyser200 in the filter wheel and an Atik414ex camera. Planning on getting everything all configured/focused/aligned and then get a spectrum from Sheliak if all goes well...

250px on an AzEQ6 in Az mode. ASI1600 for some lucky imaging experiment (thinking of M15) and possibly a monster barlow lunar session later.

Can't wait...

[ghostdance]

Nice!

And there was me, going to be boring and just look at the Moon

 

Nice-looking Whippets too!

[DaveS]

Setting up to get H-alpha data on M33 with a 3nm filter. Hopefully the moon will be far enough away to make it worthwhile.

If that's too noisy I will either have a look at the Eastern Veil or else just add to my model.

[Davey-T]

Looking nice and clear here ATM.

Phoned IKI today to order 3nm HA filter but he wasn't there 

Dave

[Yamez]

Brilliant, though unfortunately it's cloudy here   

Good luck with everything tonight!

[Tiny Small]

Collecting Ha on the Crescent with a 7nm Altiar. Very impressed with their filters so far.

[DaveS]

1 hour ago, Davey-T said:

Looking nice and clear here ATM.

Phoned IKI today to order 3nm HA filter but he wasn't there 

Dave

Of course, once you have the H-alpha in 3nm, how long before you try the [NII] 

I'm bringing my NB filters with my wheel, so if you want to try out a 1.25" [NII] just ask.

[Davey-T]

Thanks Dave, I've got a set of 5nm Astrodons but peeps keep banging on about how good the 3nm HA is so thought I'd give it a try especially as I've got a spare slot so I can do a side by side comparison and see for myself, supposed to produce a significant increase in SNR but that only be theoretical so a real world test will be good.

Hope I can get one before SGLX11

Dave

[Knighty2112]

Still quite a few good things to look at even with the moon out, so long that is that the moon is not too close in the sky to the objects you want to view. Managed to catch Uranus last night in the scope very easily even with the moon reasonably close by, along with some planetary nebulas too, so was pretty chuffed!  

[DaveS]

23 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Thanks Dave, I've got a set of 5nm Astrodons but peeps keep banging on about how good the 3nm HA is so thought I'd give it a try especially as I've got a spare slot so I can do a side by side comparison and see for myself, supposed to produce a significant increase in SNR but that only be theoretical so a real world test will be good.

Hope I can get one before SGLX11

Dave

If it doesn't arrive before SGL 12 I'll still have my 3nm H-alpha. I plan to be doing mostly RGB on M33, so feel free to ask.

Edit: running 2 hours of H-alpha on M33 in 10 min subs now. If the sky holds I may try a few 1200 sec subs to see if they make any differencence.

[Davey-T]

Thanks for the offer

Moons coming up so that will be a test for it.

Just done an autofocus and wondering what to try, took quite a few HAs of M33 already, sky doesn't look particularly clear here, may see what the Iris comes out like.

Dave

[DaveS]

I had to pause my sequence while a large cloud bank came over. Ran another MLPT, to allow for the time that had elapsed, which reported RA residuals of 0.1 arcsec and Dec of 0.0 arcsec.

Getting more subs now.

[MattJenko]

Set up, got right focus distance with extensions for the RC6, platesolving working, was getting focus with star analyser, got focus with 250px/asi1600 and then the rain came. Had to rush and bring it all in. Most frustrating. Forecast to clear later but work tomorrow, so that might be me done for today

[Davey-T]

Don't like the sound of that, you're not far from me.

Dave

[DaveS]

Still getting cloud banks coming over. Keeping an eye on the subs, so far they look OK-ish, I can see the HII regions outlining the spiral arms, even though the background sky is speckled with noise, I think from Maxim's stretching.

Edit: Netweather radar is showing a large bank of rain heading southeast-ish through Saffron Walden.

[Davey-T]

A few clouds on the horizon, just having a go at centering and framing the Lobster claw nebula and getting some coordinates for it so I can find it again.

Seemed a good target as it's straight up through the murk although a plane just planted a nice contrail through it.

Dave

[DaveS]

I packed in hurriedly as I saw a huge bank of cloud coming over and I didn't want to wait around to see if it dropped anything on me. I think it's cleared now but I'm seeing plenty of contrails that are being blown into wide clouds so maybe not such a good night as I thought.

Still I think I've got 2 hours worth to add to the hour I got a couple of nights ago. The proof will be tomorrow when I get a chance to look at them properly.

[Davey-T]

Finally managed to centre and frame the Lobster Claw Sh2-157, just taking a 1200 HA sec sub to see how it looks.

Fits the WO110FLT  / QSI683 frame nicely and pretty much circling overhead so guess I'll make it my first serious 10Micron target.

Dave

[Gina]

Since my main imaging is narrow band with 3nm filters, the moon is rarely any problem.  Avoiding DSO within a few degrees of the moon, of course

[DaveS]

Well, here's the result I got from 13 x 10min subs in H-alpha with the 3nm filter. There was a pause between numbers 6 and 7 to allow cloud to move out of the way, so I had to run 2 MLPT models.

2 pixel dither in Maxim, Sigma stack in AA5 then 2 mild histogram stretches and a touch of low-pass filter.

 

With a bit of luck I'll be able to add another 2 hours of better quality subs with the moon further away. Then on to the LRGB.

[MattJenko]

Glad some success was had somewhere!

[Eratosthenes]

The viewing is lousy and we've all seen the moon before.

Take a break from astronomy and go out with your family or on a date if you are single.

And, if SOMEBODY ELSE points out the full moon, THEN pull out the grab and go scope that just happens to be in the car.  That is why you volunteered to drive, right?