Should we be thankful for small mercies?

[Psychobilly]

It seems like it has been raining forever... and the observatory last go opened up on night of 2nd June... Rain stopped mid afternoon and by around 6 o clock it was looking good... but the forecast was giving cloud by 1 am... just before 10pm it was cloudy so i decided to take the nightly handful of assorted pills including the pain killers... but when i had a final look at 10:30pm it was fairly clear...

Oh dear... the Pk's would kick in in about 60 mins (without the secret booster) and with no one else around it was a difficult decision in case I fell off the ladder (makes a change from falling off the wagon)... but i was desperate to try the Ha filter with the Modified 1000D...

So I decided to risk it opened up the obs upsetting all the spiders who had taken up residence in the roof... batteries were flat in the RDF and the reticule EP.. no probs had spares ... somewhere.. so after a brief search got them bot lit up again...

The "Dec" clutch on the scope had bound... but did free up after a worrying few mins.. the RA drive sounded like it hadn't moved for years rather than a few months.. and the 5 button on the Hand controller decided it wasn't going to light up... well not just yet..

The DSI II decided it wasn't going to play with the Joypad plugged in the pier hub... so unplugged that and got the DSI working...

I'd fitted the 2" Ha filter into the FFIII and put the 1000D on the back .. normally if i get the alignment star close to the centre focus indicator on the 1000D the star will be in the FOV of the 12mm Reticule EP on the 8"... OK Vega was the first alignment star... got it close in the RDF .. but no sign of it through the viewfinder of the 1000D (through the Ha filter) ... oh dear .. or words to that effect were muttered... the Ha filter was removed and noraml(ish) service resumed..

As I was only going to try NGC7000 and IC5070 I used Vega and Deneb as alignment stars... Let PHDGuide calibrate on Deneb.. then re-fitted the Ha filter to the FF III...

Time to focus up using a mask... normally a 2s exposure at ISO1600 is more than adequate.. with the Ha filter need to take this up to 15s (on Deneb) so it looked close enough and clouds were already starting to roll up on the horizon...

Fired up the Sky6... Framed the shot... and then told it to slew the scope... at least that seemed to work ok... found a guide star without too many problems...

A 120s test shot at ISO 1600 showed that the scope was in the right area..

SO set EOS util to take a few 5 min shots at ISO 1600... first one finished and the camera switched off... another oh dear moment... unplugged the USB cable switched it off back on again reconnected the cable and the port on he lappy has decide it doesn't want to be usb2 anymore so drops back to usb1 rates... anyway clouds are getting ever closer...

Setup for a run of 12 7m30s subs at ISO 800 and got ... 4 before the horrible ding from PHD and a look sky wards confirmed my worst fears then clouds had arrived en-masse...

Starting to feel a bit drowsy so I decide to call it a morning.. hibernated the scope and close up the obs...

Typically about 10 mins after everything was closed up ... it cleared again but there was no way I was going to open up again...

SO all i got was 4x450s ISO 800 and 1x300s ISO 1600 subs of NGC7000 and IC5070 with the Baader Modified 1000D on the Megrez 72 FFIII through the Baader 40nM Ha Filter.. No where near enough time.. so the jury is still out....

But seeing as you have read this far ....

I'll post it anyway...

[ATTACH]25259[/ATTACH]

Morning all

Peter....

[Catanonia]

before the horrible ding from PHD and a look sky wards confirmed my worst fears then clouds had arrived en-masse...

What scope were you using for this mate ? Much wider than my ED80

LOL mate, sounds exactly like my sessions and hoping not to hear

DING !!!!!!!

So glad you managed to get out and take some shots, nice feeling managing to do it and create image you got there.

Are you competing with Minimalist and myself for the NGC 7000 flag

On another side, ISO 800 and that image looks squarely in aligment with mine, I wonder if a merge is in order

Hope the pain goes away..

Cat

[Neil I]

Morning Peter, Cat

Thinks I've had a similar experience to you tonight (but not quite as bad). Spent a few hours fighting with PHD and when I finally get it tracking properly the battery runs out in the camera

Managed to get about 20mins of images out of a 3hr session

Off to bed now

Neil

[Catanonia]

Mains power for the camera required. Got mine, soooooo much stress relief.

Starting to get to stage I am going to need a separate power grid for my observatory..

[Neil I]

Mains power for the camera required. Got mine, soooooo much stress relief.

Yes, that's definately next on my list

[Tim]

At least you were out Peter! Finally!

I wont tell you about my night then, it'll only depress you.

For the Ha filters, especially on these dimmer nebs, you really want to try and increase the exposure time of each sub. From what I have seen, the 1000D is great at handling the long exposures, and the noise doesnt build up like the 350D.

You will soon see that 1 x 600 or 900 seconds will reveal more detail in the Ha emissions than 10 x 300. I generally go for 1200 or even 1500sec subs after testing the responses, that seems to be the only way to bring out the smaller, darker dusty bits, and to give them shape and definition.

Ooh, just re-read your post and see you have the 40nm filter. Cant speak for that one.

You must have a nice RGB version of this, are you going to add this in as a Luminosity layer? Its pretty easy with Registar.

I'm just glad you were out at all Peter, was starting to think you'd gone all soft on us!

:)

[Aza]

Phew out at last!

Sounds like a nightmare, things go rusty so quick huh?

As Tim says, definitely go longer on the subs. I would go for 15 mins

[Psychobilly]

Cat its with the WIllima Optic Megrez 72 fitted with a Field Flattener III...

TJ tried a range of exposures and settled on 7m30s at ISO800 based on histogram...

Aza... yeah right... no physical or mental rust... It was the first time running the newly configured setup in "anger" ... most of the issues were caused by the change to computer control of the mount... including the fact that the Pier hub needed to be "powered" again if i had the joypad connected to it...

It's a pity that opportunities to get out have been so few and so short as theres no time to "debug" stuff.. but got it sorted in short order last night...

Not convinced about the benefits of the 40nm filter with the modded camera... maybe on nights when luna is around it might have some small benefit..

Really need to get a few hours data with it before deciding if its useful...

Only good thing is i didn't pay for it...

Peter...

[Aza]

Ah thats a better reason for having the issues then

Is 40nm to broad perhaps? I have not heard of anyone using one like that before.

[Starstrike]

Doesn't sound like it was your day or was it morning Peter, but never mind at least you got somewhere with your image, persistance pays off. Paul

[steppenwolf]

At least you got out there Peter - I thought I was in for a session tonight but clouds on the horizon rather cooled my enthusiasm.

[MikeP]

Just up the road from you Steve - was hoping to get out but one look at the satellite images told me it was going to be a waste of time.

Mike

[philj]

Good image Peter and glad you could get out again

So Im not the only one who has bugs when 1st waking up the rig after summer recess, I was beginning to think it was me.

Philj

[Psychobilly]

Because I had been "hibernating" the mount I hadn't backed of the clutches... and since I had also removed the cameras of the back of the scopes the whole OTA was out of balance so they were left nipped up... somethign to keepo in mind in case of a future long lay up

anyway... will get out there later todat and just exercise the moutn for a while using the software and see how things go...

I have got away with the Pier USB hub un-powered with the GP-USB, USB-RS232 adaptor and DSI running on it... which is handy as I havent got mains at the pier anymore only run 13.8V DC to the pier which is supplied for a 30A supply connected in paralle with a 110AH Lesiure battery... means I can run through any mains issues saved a couple of sessions last spring ... theres nothing like losing alignment mid session for making the blood boil...

I'lll proibably give the Ha filter one more go giving it 3 hours on NGC7000 IC5070 and will compare the result to the Red channel form similar exposures full "colour" data set .. if theres no real benefit I can't see it being used that often...

Peter...