Getting back into imaging after a long break

[Gina]

CO is showing plenty of clear sky for tonight.  Or rather, it is ATM!

[DaveS]

Haha, yes same here. Dare I cross fingers for tonight? don't know. Looking across the fields I'm seeing quite a bit of haze. How is it where you are?

[Gina]

Very hazy  too.

[Stub Mandrel]

Last night spoilt by thin and intermittent cloud, really. Stayed up to 2 but not sure how much usable data I got.

Annoying as the HEQ5 was tracking at 1.05" which isn't bad with the 150PL hanging off it.

Left it set up and parked, tried for mercury this morning while the sun itself was still behind the house. Couldn't see anything but there seemed to be a big white haze. Will try Venus late afternoon when the sun goes behind the tree, as it's 'trailing' the sun. Will then have a last shot at Jupiter and Saturn, before another wasted night failing to get DSO data 😞

[Gina]

For me this is mainly a "shake-down" of all the gear and if I manage to capture decent data, that is a bonus.  I don't expect much clarity tonight - it's too warm.

[DaveS]

And the farmers around here have started harvesting their grain, so there's a lot of dust from that in the air. I'm not complaining, it's just that time of year.

[Gina]

Haymaking round here.

[DaveS]

That too.

[Stub Mandrel]

I seem to have got usable data for at least one target last night. Need to get flats.

[Gina]

Great!  I have an electroluminescent panel for flats.  Works well.

Edited August 25, 2019 by Gina

[Gina]

I can see stars in the sky

[Gina]

As expected - not very good sky.  Autofocus worked and adjusted the focus a small amount.  It was satisfied after 12 iterations.  Live image plate solving is still not working probably because of poor clarity.  OTOH the star pattern looks clear enough to me.  Maybe I'll try OIII rather than Ha.

[JamesF]

Plate solving seems to be working fine from here, Gina.  Are you using the online one still?

James

[Gina]

No I'm using offline.

[Gina]

Tried the online solver and that failed to solve the original so didn't even get to try the live image.

[Gina]

Do you use darks when plate solving, James?  What settings do you use?

[Gina]

Had a look at the sky with no.1 eyeball and not many stars showing so I guess trying to do anything much is a waste of time and effort.

[DaveS]

Sorry to hear that Gina, it's pretty good over here, if not spectacular. Certainly the MW is showing good detail to my mk1 eyeballs.

[Gina]

No sign of MW here - very few stars and not many street and house lights so seems to be mist.  At 600ft (200m) ASL here so that may be the difference.

[Gina]

The image isn't all that bad considering the state of the sky.  This is Ha 30s exposure at gain of 420.  The framing could be better if my Park position had Polaris centred.  Of course, plate solving of the live image should correct that.

[DaveS]

21 minutes ago, Gina said:

No sign of MW here - very few stars and not many street and house lights so seems to be mist.  At 600ft (200m) ASL here so that may be the difference.

I'm only about half your elevation at 90m (According to OS). MW clear down to the horizon. Been sweeping with the bins, picking up M8 and M20 plus star clouds.

[JamesF]

I'm not using darks for plate solving, no.  Neither with my 314L+ nor the 174MM.  I am doing the solving locally though, and I found it didn't work very easily in Ekos unless I had the telescope focal length set fairly accurately.

James

[Gina]

I see.  I'm not satisfied with the image clarity.  Whether it's focus or trying to use the lens at too wide an aperture I don't know.  I might try a different lens another night.  Best HFR I've achieved is around 4 pixels which is ridiculous - I might as well use 4x binning.  I don't think I've used the 55mm f1.8 lens before.  I know I got good results with the 105mm f2.8.  I also have 135mm f2.5 which should be suitable for the Cygnus Loop.  Not bad for some of the other Cygnus DSOs either.  The NAN and Sadr region are very bright.

[Gina]

Think I'll just leave it capturing 300 Ha subs of 30s binned 2x2 and see what I've got in the morning.  Lots of dew on the observatory framework but none on the lens last time I looked.

Too tired to stay up any longer so I'll goodnight folks and hope you have some success.

[JamesF]

Definitely sensible to drop back to something you know works and check everything there.  Could be worth stopping the current one down a little too, as an experiment.  Looking at the image you just posted, I'm not entirely sure about the star shapes.  Could be a bit of drift, could be some sort of aberration, or it could just be my glasses need cleaning

James