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Western Veil in 30 mins grab & go in Surrey


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Hi there,

Friday was our observing night at Guildford AS at Albury Heath in Surrey.

The turnout: Myself and one other, but it was holiday season after-all.

Anyway, I had about 1 hour of imaging & observing, considering setup time, dismantle time, 1hr drive to and from the site, and we were pestered each 30 mins by the public turning up in their cars with full headlights for fun.

It's a real shame. On the few nights a year we get clear skies on a club observing evening, a load of Kevs turn up in their cars, shine their headlights at us and disappear, then come back every 30 mins throught the night. It started a few months ago, now it's getting ridiculous. If you're an appartment-dweller in Surrey and don't have rural private land to observe from, then you're really sh*fted.

anyway, here's 5x5 mins on the Western Veil; before and after processing. Note the proximity from Guildford really shows the background glow; I dread to think how it would have been from town.

Anyway, the edges are blurred, it's over-processed, too-stretched, grainy. But considering it was from 30 mins in a damp, dewey, soggy, misty field maybe not so bad.

Lessons learned; Exposure time matters; repeat over several evenings (or several years at this rate); ensure the CCD is perfectly flat with the viewing plane (oops).

Equip: Skywatcher 190MN ; EQ6+EQMOD; QHY8

Processing: PixInsight LE

post-16194-133877388092_thumb.jpg

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follow-up: the stars on the right of the pic look like comets because the CCD was not completely flat in the eyepiece barrel ; it was hanging horizontally from the OTA with a very short 2" insert. After re-attaching it, the stars were sharp, but the optics were dripping from dew/condensation and it was time to pack up & drive home. Will try the Hotech 2" SCA adapter next time. Cheers. Chris

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Wow!!! Can't believe how much you managed to pull out of that orange mess! And this is your darkest site, man, that's rough. You managed to pull out more in 25mins than I was able to in 8 hours! Excellent work.

Daniel

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