An enjoyable session

[Ags]

Last night I was counting the blessings of my little "rig", while I imaged the Moon and M42. It's an AZ-GTi, carbon fibre tripod and Zenithstar 66 scope, so I could quickly move it around the garden while M42 moved between obstacles on my southern view. Getting the AZ GTi to track objects reliably for hours has been difficult, but this week I found all I have to do is exactly level the tripod (very easy with the twist clamps on my Artcise tripod), point the scope at the target and select point-and-track from the Synscan app. The target stays centered with no drift at all. Of course this means I am imaging in alt-az mode, but I had an epiphany last night and realized the ZS66 has a rotating focusser, so I could tweak the focusser periodically and drastically reduce the effective field rotation. As I never shoot subs of more than a few seconds, and I am always checking on the progress frequently, that will probably work for me. Did I mention that the RACI attached to the main scope makes alignment super easy? Or that the "huge" sensor of my new ASI 485 MC really opens up the FOV?

Here is the Moon shot at 285 mm focal length (I am using an SCT 0.63 reducer that with my spacing is giving a 0.73 reduction). I need to get an IR-cut (or IR-pass) filter, so the image could be sharper, but at least the Moon gave me an easy way to get focus right.

 

And here is M42, good by my undemanding and unambitious standards even though there is less than an hour of integration time and colors are off and stars are bloated because of IR leak... I have a 2" Baader UHC-S filter, but no way to mount it on the ZS66, only on my camera lenses.

 

Edited December 22, 2021 by Ags

[Ags]

I thought I could get more from the data on Orion, but not using Gimp. I gave AstroPixelProcessor a try. Awesome software. License purchased!

[davew]

On 23/12/2021 at 12:11, Ags said:

I gave AstroPixelProcessor a try. Awesome software. License purchased!

That's a fantastic result and nothing like the first image ! You've set your own bar quite a bit higher now

I keep meaning to do a bit with camera lenses and AltAz but never get round to it. I really should shouldn't I ?

Dave.

[Ags]

Thanks, I am giving M45 a try tonight. 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

5 minutes ago, Ags said:

Thanks, I am giving M45 a try tonight. 

Good luck, Nothing doing here north UK so might as well open another bottle of red and make the best of it 🙂 

Steve

Edited December 25, 2021 by teoria_del_big_bang

[Ags]

6 hours ago, davew said:

I really should shouldn't I

Actually I am thinking of selling my last few lenses, to fund a duo band filter and a sorely needed IR blocker. It looks like the ZS66 with a 0.63 reducer is wide enough.

[davew]

1 hour ago, Ags said:

It looks like the ZS66 with a 0.63 reducer is wide enough.

As someone who's been known to mosaic with a 14mm lens then there's not much out there wide enough 😀  I could actually do with a few more seconds per shot that my AltAz tracker would give me without having to lug loads of heavy gear up hill. Perhaps I ought to bribe myself with chocolate and mince pies. On the other hand, they could be why I can't lug gear up hill !

Good idea to look into getting a duo band or one like it.

Merry Christmas Agnes,

Dave.