A short session

[Dmack1]

This was neither intended or expected to be a serious imaging session. It was about comissioning and working out cable management on my new "Todmorden" pier. (My post in "Observatories"). I also wanted to check out auto-meridian flip (AFM)as the last couple of times had not gone so well. The nights are getting very short so I knew I'd not get much data on anything but that was fine if I could achieve those other goals.

First up was The Sombrero Galaxy - M104. Too small really for this kit (80 ED ASI2600mc) and too low for my latitude as it does not quite reach 25 degrees alt. But it was well placed to test both cabeling and AFM so I set it up for a 1.5 hour run with the L-pro filter.

 

And a crop for detail

By this time the tulip had just about cleared the roof of my house. The forcast was saying clouds/fog due in an hour but being an optomist i set it for a 3 hour run which would take it well into twighlight and went to bed. As it happens I only lost about 5 images to clouds which came and went and the fog descended in a blanket literally 5 minutes after the last image (I could see it on the PHD2 log). So for once I struck lucky. It could of course do with more integration but the plan will be to get some good time on this with the l-enhance then add in the RGB stars from this.

One note is that both of these had the new NoiseXterminator module applied and it was incredibly effective particularly on the Sombrero - while the 2600 is not noisy, such a low target and only 1.5 hours made it way noisier than I'd like.

So, PA was acheived quickly and hopefully will not need to be redone anytime soon thanks to the new pier, cable management was easy, AFM went off without a hitch and I came out with 2 images which, to my eye anyway, are better than I had any right to expect. I call that a sucessful night!

Higher res images are in my Astrobin mackiedlm's gallery - AstroBin

Thanks for looking and C&C welcome as always.

Edited May 8, 2022 by Dmack1