Taking a break from the summertime nebulae, I focused on the Fireworks Galaxy for three nights. I had to work through some issues with astigmatism that I found out was due to my secondary dew heater. So one night’s data wasn’t superb, but it all averaged out in the end.… Continue Reading... "Fireworks Galaxy"
I’m getting a little better at focusing within SharpCap, and I kinda like the seeing monitor in it to only capture the better frames. I then stacked the best 20 out of 100. Continue Reading... "44% Moon"
So, I finally figured out the most crazy problem I have been having. Let me set up the story. The last month or two, I have been having horrible stars in my images. They would usually be elongated from the lower left corner to the upper right corner across the… Continue Reading... "Tube currents and astigmatism"
If your guiding seems to be behaving a little worse than you expect, consider this embarrassing anecdote: For the last few months, I have been struggling with pretty bad guiding from my EQ8-R mount. When I first got it, I was able to get about 0.7″ RMS from it, give… Continue Reading... "Bad guiding?"
Once I figured out that my only workable imaging configuration was the ASI2600MC and 2x barlow, I slewed from Jupiter to nearby Saturn. I took 3000 frames of “decent” seeing using the seeing monitor in SharpCap, and stacked the best 20 percent of the frames. Continue Reading... "Saturn 2020"
I tried using my ZWO ASI178M camera on Jupiter, but the atmospheric dispersion just smudged it out. So, that plan didn’t work out. The next plan was to use my ASI2600MC. I used an Orion 2″ 2x barlow, and this gave me a pixel scale of about 0.32 arcseconds per… Continue Reading... "Jupiter 2020"
I was always super confused when working with color SER files in Siril. In particular, the program always says you can “debayer them on the fly,” but I could never figure out how to do that. The files are definitely beneficial when doing lunar or planetary work, as they are… Continue Reading... "Working with SER files in Siril"
What a week! The skies graced me with five clear nights in a row. I decided to go “deep” on a single target, choosing the Tulip‘s neighbor, the Crescent Nebula. I captured over 25 hours of data on this target, mostly during a bright moon. The Baader UHC filter makes… Continue Reading... "The Crescent"
I was too lazy to take off my Baader UHC filter, but I wanted to snap the moon, anyways. Continue Reading... "Luna in narrowband"
I was up with the birds this morning after another sequence finished, and noticed Venus over the trees. No barlow or anything fancy, just a quick slew and capture. I think the atmospheric dispersion is kinda cool. Here is a short video of the raw data: Continue Reading... "Crescent Venus"
