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November 2021 - anyone playing tonight

TerryMcK

By TerryMcK,
in Anyone imaging tonight?

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Carastro

Carastro

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Not done any imaging since Kelling Heath Star party, partly due to sorting out the household electrics problem (which included the obsy - so no power out there) which is now fixed, but the work entailed emptying of cupboards and moving furniture around, and still not quite recovered from that as it's made us reorganise/have a clear out.   But also because I have simply run out of suitable targets I can do from home (Bortle 8).  Can't keep repeating the same images limited by LP.

 

So am currently doing some "maintenance work".  Trying to get the two scopes and cameras on my dual rig looking at the same thing (it worked previously some time ago), and also getting the dual rig to balance (that also worked previously and can't understand why it won't again.  It needs more weight on the aperture end of my refractors and everything has been moved as far as it can go.  I could get a longer dovetail, but was trying to find a way to avoid buying yet more dovetail.  I have rummaged around in my Astro bits and pieces  and found some old guidescope mounting rings bought for a previous set up and they fit over my ED80 adding to the weight, so the dual rig is now balance.  (JOB 1 COMPLETE)

 

Last night I Polar Aligned after coming back from Kelling (JOB 2 COMPLETE)  

 

Job 3 - try to get plate solving working in APT - tried it before with Roger's help (who uses the same plate solving) but could not get it to work, so going to have another try and if it doesn't work will sent the log files to Ivo.

 

Job 4 - Align the 2 imaging scopes and cameras so they are looking at the same thing and orientated the same.  

 

It's difficult when I have to keep de-rigging to go to astro camps, but at least using a guidescope mount, once they are looking at the same thing it should stay put, then just need to make sure I orientate the cameras orthogonally each time and should be plain sailing after that.

 

Hope to get to a darker location, at some point over the winter months as most of my targets I want to do are in broadband and winter constellations.   

 

Carole 

 

 

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DaveS

DaveS

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Fingers crossed for tonight. Running two targets, Deer Lick / Stephan's Quintet 9 subs in G2v calibration, then 3 hours on the Flame Nebula to finish off. Should finish some time after 5.30 next morning.

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Sterrenland

Sterrenland

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What a stunningly clear night tonight!! Hasn't been this clear for months.

 

The Milky Way is very evident arching beautifully across the sky and the Pleiades are a welcome sight at the start of winter.

 

After a bit of faffing getting focussed, I'm trying to capture the Ghost Nebula. Fingers crossed I get some good subs.

 

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Carastro

Carastro

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Yes I was out last night.  As my above post, I tried Platesolving which did not work yet again.  Forgot to copy the log files, so reverted to my workhorse of handset, Artemis and PHD1.

 

Next clear night I shall align the dual rig which is already set up, and hopefully can collect twice as much data like I used to do in the past.  It was a bit too cold last night to do too much fiddling.  

 

Carole 

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DaveS

DaveS

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Currently running another 6 hour Luminance on Deer Lick / Stephan's Quintet.

 

Although the first sequence last night completed without problems for reasons that still escape me the second borked with Autoslew reporting servo errors. A look in the log showed an undervoltage which is puzzling.

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TerryMcK

TerryMcK

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I've got a moderately clear night tonight so I'm experimenting with the Baader UNB SHO filters to determine if they are coplanar. Then I'm aiming for a few snapshots of SH2 91/LBN 147 which will fully fit into the RedCat51's field of view.

The images I've seen of it show a dense starfield with a weak but very long nebula that should test the Ha filter out for size.

 

It will run into a neighbours tree at about 2AM but the purpose is to trial the filters. 

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Astrobdlbug

Astrobdlbug

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4 hours ago, TerryMcK said:

Then I'm aiming for a few snapshots of SH2 91/LBN 147

Thats a fairly challenging target...

 

I am hoping for an all nighter - clouds cleared just after 9pm and set to be clear until 5am...

I am going to go for the winter trio in broadband RGB tonight

More subs on M45

More Subs on B33 Horsehead

Start M42

 

 

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TerryMcK

TerryMcK

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Ha not too strong at the moment in SH2 91 due to it being low in altitude and some thin cloud very high up. Also people letting off fireworks with the associated smoke generated doesn’t help either!

O3 was fairly good though. The new filters showed no sign of halos around bright stars which is great especially as I shot O3 first,

I can see SH2 91 being a long term target though.

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TerryMcK

TerryMcK

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I've done a very rough integration of what I have so far on SH2 91.

It seems to be strong in OIII and Ha - strong is a comparative term of course as it is very faint. The star field is very rich.

No noise reduction or flats used yet on this - just combined as HOO and STF'd. I need a lot more data before it becomes fit for purpose. I think it is a target worthwhile pursuing.

Just 5 hours of OIII and Ha so far.

 

image.thumb.png.c5facb64d75ab453fd6fe31790b90634.png

 

 

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AstronomyUkraine

AstronomyUkraine

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1 hour ago, TerryMcK said:

I've done a very rough integration of what I have so far on SH2 91.

It seems to be strong in OIII and Ha - strong is a comparative term of course as it is very faint. The star field is very rich.

No noise reduction or flats used yet on this - just combined as HOO and STF'd. I need a lot more data before it becomes fit for purpose. I think it is a target worthwhile pursuing.

Just 5 hours of OIII and Ha so far.

 

image.thumb.png.c5facb64d75ab453fd6fe31790b90634.png

 

 

Will be a great image once you get enough data Terry. It reminds me of the veil nebula, it's structure is very similar. Was looking at an interesting target quite close to this one, NGC 6823, but I think it will need to go on next years to-do list. I would be limited to just over two hours a night on it now.

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TerryMcK

TerryMcK

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3 minutes ago, AstronomyUkraine said:

Will be a great image once you get enough data Terry. It reminds me of the veil nebula, it's structure is very similar. Was looking at an interesting target quite close to this one, NGC 6823, but I think it will need to go on next years to-do list. I would be limited to just over two hours a night on it now.

Yes my thoughts too Brian. I've been looking on Stellarium as to how long SH2-91 stays up. Gradually as we get through the next couple of months imaging time on it from here gets less and less as it sets earlier. Fortunately the dark nights are getting longer so I will just have to start earlier (weather permitting). It was obscured by a neighbours tree early this morning at around 1AM but I managed to start just after 6PM last night.

The O3 images are free from any halos so the new Baader UNB 3.5/4nm filters are working well. Still got to test the S2 filter on a target yet though but not expecting any issues.

 

I've been looking up the nebula and it is indeed another supernova remnant that exploded around 30,000 years ago. It is a lot bigger that the wide field of view that I am getting in the RedCat51 and I'm just getting a small part of it.

https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/celestial-objects-to-watch/summers-overlooked-deep-sky-objects-08072014/

 

The red "star" at the bottom of my image is Campbell's Hydrogen Star which is a planetary nebula and there is a Wolf-Rayet star in the centre (not on my image) of the remnant according to this link

https://telescope.live/gallery/312

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AstronomyUkraine

AstronomyUkraine

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7 minutes ago, TerryMcK said:

Yes my thoughts too Brian. I've been looking on Stellarium as to how long SH2-91 stays up. Gradually as we get through the next couple of months imaging time on it from here gets less and less as it sets earlier. Fortunately the dark nights are getting longer so I will just have to start earlier (weather permitting). It was obscured by a neighbours tree early this morning at around 1AM but I managed to start just after 6PM last night.

The O3 images are free from any halos so the new Baader UNB 3.5/4nm filters are working well. Still got to test the S2 filter on a target yet though but not expecting any issues.

 

I've been looking up the nebula and it is indeed another supernova remnant that exploded around 30,000 years ago. It is a lot bigger that the wide field of view that I am getting in the RedCat51 and I'm just getting a small part of it.

https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/celestial-objects-to-watch/summers-overlooked-deep-sky-objects-08072014/

 

The red "star" at the bottom of my image is Campbell's Hydrogen Star which is a planetary nebula and there is a Wolf-Rayet star in the centre (not on my image) of the remnant according to this link

https://telescope.live/gallery/312

Was reading up about this Supernova remnant, it is indeed a massive object. SH2-91 is just a small part of the Supernova Remnant G65.3+5.7. The guy who wrote the article did an 8 panel mosaic on it, with a total integration time of 92 hours. Then said he needed more data.

 

https://digitalstars.wordpress.com/2017/09/10/supernova-remnant-g65-35-7/

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TerryMcK

TerryMcK

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1 hour ago, AstronomyUkraine said:

Was reading up about this Supernova remnant, it is indeed a massive object. SH2-91 is just a small part of the Supernova Remnant G65.3+5.7. The guy who wrote the article did an 8 panel mosaic on it, with a total integration time of 92 hours. Then said he needed more data.

 

https://digitalstars.wordpress.com/2017/09/10/supernova-remnant-g65-35-7/

Ha ha. It seems I shall have to get more than 11 hours on my small section in that case. Useful info on adding a green filter into the data capture. I'll have to dig out my old green filter!

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AstronomyUkraine

AstronomyUkraine

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2 hours ago, TerryMcK said:

Ha ha. It seems I shall have to get more than 11 hours on my small section in that case. Useful info on adding a green filter into the data capture. I'll have to dig out my old green filter!

I would think a minimum of 10 hours on each filter would be needed on this object to do it justice. I would never have thought of adding green data to an HOO image, but makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Going to have to try that myself next time I'm on a HOO target.

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TerryMcK

TerryMcK

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First session with the portable EQM35Pro and Redcat51 rig tonight albeit in the garden.

Setup was a breeze with the Polemaster and guiding calibration took the longest. About 2 minutes to run through its routine as it is a new mount that it has to learn.

Anyway capturing some Ha on Sharpless 91.

image.png.555f97f693636a59f38aab6e74c578cc.png

 

It looks ok with nice round stars.

 

Guiding is about 0.89 RMS at the moment but there is still some light in the sky so I expect it will drop down to normal levels later on but as this mount is an unknown entity at the moment I shall have to wait a while.

 

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