Wednesday 2nd January 2008

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Finally I got out with the new camera last night, it wasn’t the clearest of nights and by 1am there was complete cloud cover, but I managed a couple of hundred frames (FITS) which I now have to process.

The reason I have FITS and not an AVI is that K3CCDTools failed to work. I’d configured the software a few days ago and run some darkframe tests just to make sure everything was ok, but on the night it let me down. The menu let me select Atik and the camera was on the list but when I selected it the Atik control panel failed to open and the control panel icon was greyed out. I’ll have to look into this but it gave me a chance to look at ArtemisCapture which comes with the camera.

The first thing I noticed was that focusing took longer than usual, this was mainly because I’d left “auto-stretch” on which meant the image was very dark. Later I found the focus tool but I think I did an “OK” job without it.
M52 - Click for a bigger version

So here it is, the image that I’ve waited a month to see, first-light with the Atik 16ic. I was aiming North West after aligning on Deneb and after slewing star to star northwards I came across M52. The image is a stack of 9 from 12x10second exposures, stacked in DeepSkyStacker and processed in PhotoShop.

Field of View

I have an image of M52 taken with the SPC900NC for comparison but after putting the images together they are different orientations so while it’s difficult to demonstrate here it does give me a chance to show the difference in fields of view between the two cameras.

After taking 12 frames of M52 I moved around the sky for the next 5 hours, taking a few frames here and there just to see what I could see. What I hadn’t seen was the cloud coming over and it wasn’t until I went out to put the scope away that I realized there wasn’t a star to be seen with the unaided eye.

NGC457 - The Owl Cluster
I couldn’t resist taking a few frames of the owl cluster (NGC457) in Cassiopeiae which I’ve also taken with the 1004x and SPC900, but I think this is my best yet.

M1Here’s another from the same session, my best M1 so far. When you consider this was late in the session and almost certainly taken  through cloud it’s not that bad. Well at least it’s recognisable.

Wednesday 12th December 2007

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Atik 16icThe Atik 16ic arrived this morning, that was quick! I’ve powered it up to make sure it works but I’m under strict instructions not to use it until Christmas.

It was cloudy earlier but has cleared a little so I’ve set the scope up in the hope that I can get a few hours imaging in tonight. I thought the Crescent nebula shots from the other night were better than expected considering 15 second subs, so I’ll be increasing the exposure and hoping for a recognisable mosaic.  I still struggle with anything longer than about 30 seconds but I’ll be autoguiding within 2 weeks, that should sort out my long exposures.

On the subject of autoguiding I’ll be using my SC1 SPC900NC and as posted previously will see if I can use the 60mm refracter I have, failing that I’ve seen some promising results with 50mm finders so I may go down this route.

I’ve just had a  quick look at the remote screen and it seems to be clouding over again .. back soon.

M4200:04 – It did clear but I stayed with the Crescent to see if I could add pieces to the mosaic I’ve been building, but there’s too much high cloud and the nebula was barely visible. About 20 minutes ago I tried to slew the scope around to the North, suffered a meridian flip and lost my alignment. A trip out to the scope gave me another idea. There in the South was Orion the Hunter clear of my neighbours roof and begging to be imaged. I quickly realigned the scope and started it taking 15 second subs. Here’s the result of 46 of those frames stacked in Registax:

Monday 10th December 2007

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Torn between karate or getting the scope out I opted for the scope as I hadn’t seen the sky for a couple of weeks. An early finish from work meant the scope was setup and ready for action by 6:30pm but as usual I left M57 on the screen to get an idea of today’s drift. To my surprise there’s not a great deal of movement in the image at the moment so I’m hoping to have a good evening at the controls.albirio_k3ccd_0008d.jpg 

From M57 I stayed looking west but moved on to Albireo the double with blue and yellow stars. It’s a nice target and allowed me to fine tune the focus as both stars are bright enough to give me nice diffraction spikes to focus with. A few frames here before moving on again to the Cat Eye Nebula.

cats_eye_neb_k3ccd_0009a.jpgI’d not tried the Cat Eye before so a nice surprise to find it visible while the camera was still set to 0.5 second exposures.

I have trouble with the camera, it’ll stop functioning but keep the last good frame on the screen so unless you watch a long exposure end and the next start you’d not notice there was a problem. The fix is to unplug the camera from the laptop, then reconnect. This usually results in a blue screen of death which then needs to be restarted, reload all the software and realign the scope. I’m hoping that when my Christmas pressent arrives I won’t get this problem any more. I’ve ordered the Atik 16IC mono so that I can see what a real astro cam can so. I can’t wait for it to arrive from Ian King Imaging but I’ve been told I can’t use it until Christmas.

I think I should check my wiring in the SPC900NC as I’m sure I never connected the circuit ground to the parallel port ground which may explain the erratic behaviour. I have to get this fixed as the SPC900 will become a guide cam hopefully.

Onwards and upwards, I’m currently imaging around the crescent nebula. I was here a few weeks ago but thought I’d try again and this time I’m taking frames around the central stars to try and capture more of the nebulosity.

I’m hoping for a galaxy or 2 tonight, so I’ll be heading Northwards towards M81 and M82 as soon as I have enough Crescent frames to piece together.

Watch this space…

Crescent Nebula

The camera played tricks on me again so I’ve struggled to get any images of the cresent, but have been able to stitch 2 together into a mini mosaic.

Friday 23rd November 2007

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The weather forecast was right, the temperature is dropping to -4 degrees C tonight. But while some moan and shiver I was straight out with the scope and had it all setup within 30 minutes of ariving home from work.  I’ve been imaging since about 6pm this evening, this being the first chance since adjusting the DEC axis. M56 the Ring Nebula

Initially I needed to fine tune the gear mesh but that didn’t take long and I had the scope locked onto the Ring Nebula in no time.  I took 320×20 second exposures and ring hovered around the center of the screen the whole time. It’s an improvement from images drifting off the edge of the screen, but still room for improvement. That said, my polar alignment was hurried and I didn’t take much time to balance the mount, so maybe the errors are as much down to me now and not the play in the mount.

The Owl Cluster (NGC457)I’ve gradually moved up the sky since my first alignment by slewing to a star then adding it to my n-star alignment list, then removing the lowest of the previous stars from the list. This way I’ve managed to get from Rasalhague to Ruchbah without having to realign the mount. I’m moving ever closer to Mirfak so I hope to finish with some comet images, but beofre then I’m working on M103, The Owl Cluster (NGC457) and I’m going to see if I can get the Pac-Man Nebula as well.

I’m still imaging so hopefully this entry will be updated before the night is over.

Friday 16th November 2007

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I’ve just had the DEC assembly off the EQ-6 following instructions on James Robert Cook’s site. This is where I found the instructions for the RA axis when I regreased that so I was happy to return here for help.

I packed the tapered bearing with grease and regreased the worm. Putting everything back together had me concerned when the bearing near the head of the mount refused to go back into its seat. I eventually tapped it home, very gently, with a small hammer and a rag. My concern was that the casting would crack but I couldn’t see why the bearing would come out so easily then fail to go back in. I know you need to have everything square as it’s a tight fit but like I say, a bit of a scary moment there.

All fitted back together nicely and adjusted the mesh with the power on so that I could make sure everything turned. Adjusting the mesh control grub screws allowed me to take the slack out of the axis and now I’m ready for the next clear night.

After adjusting the RA axis I had a few re-adjustment sessions before I was happy with the mesh, I think I learned from that but I’m still prepared for some fine tuning with the mount under load. A wise man would tell you to take the electronics out, remove the stepper motors and test the mesh with your finger but I like to familliarize myself with the mount a little at a time and had no intention of stripping the whole thing down.

Start to finish was no more than 1 hour, but I didn’t chemically degreased the gears or remove the smaller bearings, I was only interested in making sure there was little or no play in the axis, others will go further and suggest replacing the bearings, but I’m hoping that’s not required at the moment.

Job Done