Nothing went right for me this time. My dew heater pad on the primary cell apparently doesn’t work very well. After just a few hours, the secondary was coated in frost, and the primary was getting there. Also, my guide scope decided to stop working during the meridian flip, so… Continue Reading... "A double whammy, the Surfboard galaxy and the Owl nebula"
I had a great frame on the Waterbug Galaxy and his neighbor, NGC 5005. These galaxies lay 64 and 81 million light years away, respectively. Photobombers include the galaxy smudges NGC 5002, near the top center, and NGC 5014, in the top right corner. These galaxies are markedly smaller and… Continue Reading... "The Waterbug and friends"
Conditions were pretty good tonight! NINA is now my favorite software, with everything working perfectly in it, including the focusing routine. I’ve never had such good focus before. And refocusing half way through the imaging plan is a huge benefit to the quality of my finished image. I did very… Continue Reading... "NGC 2903"
This is my first multi-night project, extending NGC 2403. Over three nights, I exposed for almost 12 hours. The focus was a little inconsistent, as I am still learning to use the autofocus routines in my software and also trying to pinpoint the backlash values in my focuser. The noise… Continue Reading... "NGC 2403 again"
A full moon limited my targets for the night, so I went with an easy target, the globular cluster M53. I was trying new software, NINA, and I was having a few problems learning it. My equipment was also giving me some hiccups throughout the night. I was only able… Continue Reading... "M53"
My first try at M51 last year was mind blowing at the time. And it is mindblowing yet again. Guiding was about as good as I could ever hope for all night. The meridian flip halted due to plate solving failing. It got a little confused on the super bright… Continue Reading... "Conquering M51"
NGC 2403, a circumpolar galaxy a bit west of M81 and M82, has been an ongoing target. The first night I tried it, focus was not quite right, and the weather made everything else a struggle. I scrapped that data. I tried it again last night with much better focus,… Continue Reading... "NGC 2403"
Things are starting to go better with my meridian flips and reflection problems. I was able to get over three hours of great data on M3. My guiding was superb, and I started using a moderate dither every few frames. This is 230 frames of 50 seconds each at 800… Continue Reading... "M3, the original cluster"
Late at night, the M101 group was starting to circle around Polaris to a decent altitude. The APT autofocus seemed to work better this time, with a FWHM of around 5 for the stars. I began taking three minute exposures, and only got 67 frames deep before the meridian flip… Continue Reading... "M101 redux"
After figuring everything out with my new equipment, I set up for a real target, Bode’s galaxy and the Cigar galaxy. Just east of Polaris that day, I figured I could get a ton of images of it. I set up the scope to take five hours of exposures at… Continue Reading... "Bode’s and the Cigar galaxies"
