A quick Cigar and Bodes between the snow showers

[Chris]

Like many I've not been able to partake in a bit of astro for a while due to all this snow. More snow than I've seen for years in the South East recently so I was thankful to see an unexpected gap in the clouds. The clear outside app and Sat24 both promised a couple of hours if I was lucky so I grabbed the chance to try out the WO Megrez 72 with the Altair 294C which I had setup in the obsy a couple of weeks back. My first mission was to thaw the lock out, then the roof was iced shut, but eventually I gained access and managed the whole of one sub on Orion before it clouded over. Thankfully it was only passing clouds so I swung around to the north and eyed up M81/82. I managed 18 x 60 sec unguided subs before more clouds arrived, this time they started dropping snow on my scope so I shut up shop pretty quick. Stupidly I moved the camera before realising I needed to do my flats so I've been battling gradient with what data I do have, but it was so nice to get semi back on the horse with almost proper deep sky imaging. I'll take it as a win. 

As always I documented the night with video. 

  

Edited February 13, 2021 by Lockie

[JeremyS]

Great video Chris. I especially enjoyed the Kenneth Williams moment 😊 

[RobertI]

Hi Chris, good to see you getting back into the imaging saddle, that setup is working well. I love the animations in the video! 😂 

[Chris]

24 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Great video Chris. I especially enjoyed the Kenneth Williams moment 😊 

You're a man after my own heart, Jeremy😀 coincidentally I'm rubbish at impressions, but for some reason I can do a really convincing Kenneth " Oh behave!" 

[Chris]

6 minutes ago, RobertI said:

Hi Chris, good to see you getting back into the imaging saddle, that setup is working well. I love the animations in the video! 😂 

Cheers Rob, glad you like the animations! I love messing about with stuff like that 😆

[Luke Newbould]

Enjoyed the video, looking forwards to more! Just subbed to your channel

 

Seeing that it's not always smooth sailing even when you have an obsy almost makes it not seem too bad carrying my rig out each time...almost!

[andy fearn]

9 hours ago, Lockie said:

Like many I've not been able to partake in a bit of astro for a while due to all this snow. More snow than I've seen for years in the South East recently so I was thankful to see an unexpected gap in the clouds. The clear outside app and Sat24 both promised a couple of hours if I was lucky so I grabbed the chance to try out the WO Megrez 72 with the Altair 294C which I had setup in the obsy a couple of weeks back. My first mission was to thaw the lock out, then the roof was iced shut, but eventually I gained access and managed the whole of one sub on Orion before it clouded over. Thankfully it was only passing clouds so I swung around to the north and eyed up M81/82. I managed 18 x 60 sec unguided subs before more clouds arrived, this time they started dropping snow on my scope so I shut up shop pretty quick. Stupidly I moved the camera before realising I needed to do my flats so I've been battling gradient with what data I do have, but it was so nice to get semi back on the horse with almost proper deep sky imaging. I'll take it as a win. 

As always I documented the night with video. 

  

Enjoyed you'r video. good bit of fun in these troubled times .Well worth the effort.

[Chris]

2 hours ago, Luke Newbould said:

Enjoyed the video, looking forwards to more! Just subbed to your channel

 

Seeing that it's not always smooth sailing even when you have an obsy almost makes it not seem too bad carrying my rig out each time...almost!

 

Thanks Luke! lol yeah when you build an obsy you never really think about having to poor hot water on the padlock to unfreeze it, or that the roof will freeze shut too! I think it's still worth it though if you're ever in the position to convert on old shed as I've done, if only for the feeling that you can quickly roll the roof back if it suddenly rains or snows as it did during my 19th sub exposure that night lol! 

[Chris]

2 hours ago, andy fearn said:

Enjoyed you'r video. good bit of fun in these troubled times .Well worth the effort.

Thanks Andy, we've got to laugh else we'll cry hey. Glad you enjoyed it