Triangulum Galaxy, M33

[kbrown]

Managed to capture about 65 (180s each) useable subexposures of the Triangulum Galaxy on my holiday. Mostly luminance but apparently enough RGB data too to bring out some colour. Not bad considering I didn't take any flat frames for calibration.

More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulum_Galaxy

[Ags]

What equipment did you use on your holiday?

[kbrown]

13 minutes ago, Ags said:

What equipment did you use on your holiday?

EDIT: accidently hit submit before I was ready :\

Scope: Skywatcher 250PX

Mount: NEQ6 Pro

Guider: 50mm skywatcher finder + QHY5L-II mono

CCD: Atik 383L+ mono

Astronomik LRGB filters

DIY INDI focuser

DIY INDI filterwheel (modified OpticStar Manual 2" wheel)

Dew heater only on guider

Raspberry Pi2 for INDI server

KStars / Ekos for control and capture

lin_guider running on the RPi2 for guiding

PixInsight for processing

[tooth_dr]

Very nice. Ive literally just made up a finderscope guider for my EQ6 to use with my 250px, so glad to see it works superbly! Any particular issues and advice settings to use if you don’t mind?!

 

[Ouroboros]

I like your image very much. Personally I prefer the rather more subtle colouring in your image compared with the more gaudy images of this galaxy we see sometimes. 

[kbrown]

3 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Very nice. Ive literally just made up a finderscope guider for my EQ6 to use with my 250px, so glad to see it works superbly! Any particular issues and advice settings to use if you don’t mind?!

 

It's fairly straight forward to use. Just make sure it's in focus before you go out in the dark with it. That's probably the trickiest thing with it as there's no focuser at least not in mine.

For guiding settings I usually try to keep the exposure as short as possible by setting the camera gain quite high so that it responds quick. For this image I used 0.5s exposures with 85 (max 100) gain.

I also have tweaked the guiding parameters a little from the defaults. I lowered the proportional gain a little and introduced some integral gain. Can't remember the exact values off top of my head. Just make sure your rig is balanced properly before you start experimenting with these sort of settings...

[Ags]

12 hours ago, kbrown said:

EDIT: accidently hit submit before I was ready :\

Scope: Skywatcher 250PX

Mount: NEQ6 Pro

Guider: 50mm skywatcher finder + QHY5L-II mono

CCD: Atik 383L+ mono

Astronomik LRGB filters

DIY INDI focuser

DIY INDI filterwheel (modified OpticStar Manual 2" wheel)

Dew heater only on guider

Raspberry Pi2 for INDI server

KStars / Ekos for control and capture

lin_guider running on the RPi2 for guiding

PixInsight for processing

If you flew to the holiday destination, was all that in your hand luggage? 

[kbrown]

47 minutes ago, Ags said:

If you flew to the holiday destination, was all that in your hand luggage? 

Haha. No we went by car. It's actually quite amazing how much stuff I can fit in my two door coupe. On top of the stuff in the photo there was also her and her luggage B-)

[wigggyy]

Very nice image thanks for posting 

[Xiga]

7 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Very nice. Ive literally just made up a finderscope guider for my EQ6 to use with my 250px, so glad to see it works superbly! Any particular issues and advice settings to use if you don’t mind?!

 

Adam, I also use a Finder-Guider (together with an ancient QHY5 camera) but then I use it with just an 80ED at 510mm FL, and not the 1200mm FL of your 250px! Here's a few tips I've picked up over the course of time:

Ditch the standard Skywatcher Adapter that has the spring-loaded adjustment screw. Look for a pair of rings instead. I think I got mine from ScopeStuff (not sure though!) and I've tightened the screws to within an inch of their life. I don't get any flex (well, not that I can tell anyway!)

Align it as best you can during the day to the centre of your main imaging camera

I keep my QHY5 permanently attached to mine. I don't know if you intend to do the same, but I know it saves me precious minutes in setting up each time. Also means I never have to adjust the focus (one less thing to go wrong)

Here's a useful article that helps calculate the Min Move setting in PHD. I use a value of 0.08 for my setup. I also use 2 second guide exposures  http://www.myastroscience.com/minmoveinphd

I also highly recommend using PHD2 over the original PHD (not sure which one you use). I started out using PHD but have moved on to PHD2 and I haven't looked back since (I still have it installed as a backup in case PHD2 ever gives me trouble, which it hasn't yet - famous last words!). Also, just recently, the latest beta release has a new RA guiding algorithm (PPEC - Predictive PEC) that learns the regular error of the worm gear over the course of the imaging session. I've been using it recently and I've definitely seen a 0.1-0.2" improvement in my RMS error since.

Good luck!

Edit - Sorry to have dragged things off-topic. That's a lovely M33 KBrown!