ASI294 - second-light EAA

[AKB]

Yesterday night, Feb 18, I took out my new ASI294 for a second run.  Conditions were poor:  fairly full moon, windy, high cloud, but I was also keen to try out my fettled Quattro 8, which I've treated to a CatsEye auto-collimator.  Rather stupidly, I also added an IDAS-P2 filter to the chain without adjusting the backfocus from the coma corrector.

Three quickly chosen targets (and poorly framed, I should add), regrettably close to the moon.  Here are both single frames (just debayered and stretched) and some short stacks:

• Rosette – 60 second exposures, stack of 10
• Flame and Horse head – 20 second exposures, stack of 20
• Orion – 30 second exposures, stack of 20

All full-sized frames.  This is with unity gain (setting of 117.)

The single frames are just about as bad as I was expecting, given the moon.  But the stacks show a great improvement, considering.

So much to learn with this new CMOS stuff, and so little opportunity in good conditions.  You just have to take what comes.

 

Rosette (10 minutes total)

    

 

Flame and Horse head (6 minutes 40s total)

     

 

Orion (10 minutes total)

     

 

Comments welcomed.

 

 

 

[don4l]

Excellent results - especially given the exposure times.

 

What capture software are you using?

[AKB]

47 minutes ago, don4l said:

What capture software are you using?

This uses Nebulosity, so the stacking is all done post-acquisition.   But I do like it because it is so simple, yet integrates so well with guiding (PHD) and enables dithering (when doing real astro-photography.)

[RobertI]

Nice results, looking very promising, ?

[MilwaukeeLion]

Great results, like the Rosette especially !