Winter experiments with kit

[carastro]

I normally go to astro camps monthly but in the winter I have to resign myself to my ghastly Bortle 8 home location in SE london.

So I decided this was the time to do experiments and get things working.

1.  Check on the collimation of my SW130PDS which got out of collimation back in the late summer and has been a nightmare to get it sorted - thanks to RolandKol.  So getting an image to test collimation.

2. Get the spacing right in my Atik460EX which has been a bit hit and miss due to having several scopes and cameras and using a variable spacer and it invariably got nudged.

3. Try to see if I can use a Hub on my W7 laptop so I can use EQMod.  Never really been able to use it before unless I had two laptops running as Hubs just would not work reliably, always pinging and disconnecting and sometimes packing up.

4. Get plate solving working (see the Problems with PS2 thread).

So...............................

Over the last few nights I managed to get 7 hours imaging time (was at the theatre last night so missed the 3rd clear night).

I needed a target that was doable from Home, with bright stars to check my Spikes.  Can't do the North as house in the way, can;t do the South as bank of Trees in the way.

The targets chosen both appear for a short while before passing behind a tree for about an hour and then shortly after they reappeared cross the Meridian.

1. I think was successful (see image below).

2. Was also successful after finally finding some fixed spacers. 

3. Was successful so I can only conclude that having ditched my old Vista imaging laptop and using a slightly newer W7 has solved that problem.  This proved very convenient with the 2 target/ tree/ Meridian challenge.

4. Half accomplished in that it now works on the simulator.  I will try it out with a live sky, real camera and mount next clear sky and this doesn't matter if there is a Moon up. 

Anyway, enough waffle.

Here is the first resulting image - Not intended to be a pukka image as it was just for testing the collimation and spacing.  It needs bags more data but as said, only for experimental purposes. 

In total I took just over 5 hours, but half of this was in RGB for the stars as I stupidly did 1 1/2 hours on the RED channel instead of the Ha channel wondering why the nebulosity showing was rather faint, so would have had 1 1/2 hours more on Ha. 

So in fact the main part of the image is only 2hours 40 minutes.

Ha 9 x 600secs
Oiii 5 x 300secs binned x 2
Sii 4 x 300secs binned x 2
RGB (stars only) 2h 30mins

SW130PDS, Atik460EX, HEQ5
EQMod

Narrowband version only 

NB with added RGB stars

[AKB]

Look like a worthwhile use of time!  Rosette, yes?  I’d be pleased with that at any time... got a horrible problem with my Newtonian at the moment, or maybe camera, or perhaps calibration, ...  should follow your example and try to fix things rather than hoping they’ll be better next time!

Tony

[Vixen4eva]

Looking good Carole

Alan (long haired hippy rocker) ?

[RayD]

A very worthwhile exercise, Carole, and definitely a good use of time.

[carastro]

Quote

Rosette, yes? 

Yes, sorry I didn't say.

Carole 

[PaulB]

Looking very good Carole,

But- you are showing off you know. Three clear night's. That has to be a record!

[carastro]

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Three clear night's. That has to be a record!

I know, they weren't entirely clear, was dodging clouds, but still pretty good.

Carole