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You're a Wizard, Duo!


Peds

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This was a test image for a camera I just purchased mainly for travel, the ASI2600MC Duo. As much as I'd love to carry all my astro gear (filters, rotator, etc) with me on trips, luggage space is at a premium when traveling with the family. The simplicity of a OSC camera with a built-in guider was too appealing. This camera will live on my AP Stowaway.

Rather than do the usual unguided imaging run after creating a model, I wanted to see what I could get with only a rough polar alignment (a single pass with Polemaster), no model, and a 4nm dualband filter in front of the guider. I'm impressed! PHD2 was able to find stars to guide at 1s exposure (note this is with a 4nm filter and at f/7), but I chose to guide at 4s. I suspect that with a proper model and "bump" guiding, results will be even better. After I dial in tilt, I'll also need to test the Duo guider with my 0.8x reducer (f/5.3), which has a smaller image circle - at 40mm - but should be even easier to find suitable stars to guide with.

I suppose now I need to go shopping for a lightweight/portable mount. The Rainbow Astro RST-135E seems to have everything I want, except the price!

Anyway, here's the Wizard Nebula, taken from my backyard in very light polluted East London, UK. More info on Astrobin here.

 

Wizard Nebula_NGC7380_AP92FF_HOO_Drizzle2x_downsampled.jpg

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On 16/09/2023 at 00:25, JonHigh said:

Very nice. Been thinking about buying this filter to replace my Altair Tri-band. Out of interest, what were your settings used?

I set the temperature to -10C, gain to 100, offset to 50 and took 300s exposures.

 

21 hours ago, whipdry said:

Nicely done, somehow your image processing has a relaxed feel to it... even the wizard has his feet up!

Peter

Ha! By the time I realised the camera was on sideways, the wizard was already deep asleep. 

 

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Nice!   Not too far off my setttings. Good to know. 👍🏻

The one setting I’m unsure of is the offset. Got it at 50 as well which seems to work nicely so it’s not rock bottom but I have seen others at much higher levels. The histogram doesn’t seem to clip at 50 that I’ve seen. 

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On 17/09/2023 at 09:52, JonHigh said:

Nice!   Not too far off my setttings. Good to know. 👍🏻

The one setting I’m unsure of is the offset. Got it at 50 as well which seems to work nicely so it’s not rock bottom but I have seen others at much higher levels. The histogram doesn’t seem to clip at 50 that I’ve seen. 

I haven't played around with it much but 50 seems to work well.

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On 15/09/2023 at 17:26, Peds said:

I suppose now I need to go shopping for a lightweight/portable mount.

If you can guide at 1 sec. with the Altair DB NB filter, I would suggest ZWO AM3. ASIAIR Plus would go a long way in reducing your luggage needs in combination with AP and MC DUO.

Your setup could look like something in between my two rigs.

20230826_142803.thumb.jpg.1960aac00375a4b740a66193428b4411.jpg

The smaller one got upgraded with MC DUO just recently. 😉

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