NGC 6888 (C 27) Crescent Nebula
The main target of the night was the Crescent Nebula. I imaged it with my usual telescope setup, N 150/750, Baader MPCC Mark III, Canon 1100D mod, HEQ5 with the resurrected guiding camera. I took 15×4 min ISO 800, and just for fun, 2×8 min ISO 800. To my surprise, the sky allowed this, having almost no background fill inspite of the long exposure.
C 27, NGC 6888 [nebula in Cyg] Crescent nebula, Sarló-köd ø20′ [wiki] [simbad] (tovább…)
NGC 457 Owl Cluster
The Moon was still up when I started imaging the Owl Cluster, on 2017-07-29 from Dângău Mare. I used my usual setup for small objects, the Canon 1100D mod, N 150/750, Baader MPCC Mark III, HEQ5. The autoguiding was done by the recovered camera and a very old netbook with limited battery life, run from 12V plus a DC-DC converter to feed it 19V. I gathered 22×90 sec, at ISO 400 with a few shorter and intentionally blurred frames to verify the color of the stars. It was a bit windy.
C 13, NGC 457 [open cluster in Cas] Owl Cluster, E.T. Cluster, Bagoly-halmaz, Phi Cassiopeiae Cluster, Dragonfly Cluster, Szitakötő-halmaz 6.4m ø13′ [wiki] [simbad]
Also visible, but rather faint is the galaxy LEDA 4831 or MCG+10-03-001, see in Simbad.
M57 Ring Nebula
During the last session, and parenthetically eff Microsoft for its forced Windows updates, I also imaged M 57, NGC 6720 [planetary nebula in Lyr] Ring nebula in Lyra, Gyűrűs-köd, Ring Nebula, Nebuloasa Inel 8.8m ø1.43′ [wiki] [simbad] A very faint galaxy, IC 1296 [galaxy in Lyr] 15.39m ø1′ [wiki] [simbad] also found its way onto the picture, as seen on the annotated frame
, though it took some extra work to highlight it through masking, due to the great dynamic difference between the planetary nebula and the galaxy, as it is visible on the raw frame
.
Canon 1100Da, 10×4 min, ISO 1600, MC 102/1300, HEQ5.
M27 Dumbbell – Canon 1100Da @ MC 102/1300
F/13 is not the opening at which one wants to photograph deep sky objects. But I wanted to field test the guiding I recently got. So I set up the HEQ5 with the Canon 1100Da @ MC 102/1300 on it, and let it go for the stars with 4-5-6 minutes exposures. And … it worked. However, there is a big but: effing Microsoft Windows decided it could not wait with the update, so under the starry sky, I was looking at the don’t turn off your computer screen, running on precious battery power. And I paid for Windows. After Africa, this is the second time the effing windows update effed me while on the field. So 6×4 min, ISO 800, Dângău Mare, Cluj.
M 27, NGC 6853 [planetary nebula in Vul] Dumbbell-nebula, Súlyzó-köd, Nebuloasa Dumbbell 7.4m ø8′ [wiki] [simbad]
raw
raw curved
ε Lyrae
Using the N 150/750 on the HEQ5 and the Scopium webcam, I obtained the following frames. Do note that planetary imaging means a technic – many frames, a 1-2 minutes long video of short frames, stacked -, essentilly lucky imaging, so planetary does not mean a target type. Just sayin’ :P
The clouds obscured the occultation of Porrima, so next time.
Last night I tested an old CCD Labs Q-Guide camera as an autoguider solution. I got the camera from AȚ (thank you :) ) but it came with an unexpacted “semaphore error” message, which rendered it useless. It turned out the firmware was damaged and needed to be reflashed. I found some ideas here, but not the solution itself, which started to come from here, though it was still miles ahead. Worth mentioning the answers given by QiuHY are rather cryptic (tending towards useless), more like from an oracle than a tech guy – and I’m not a believer. A good indicator of just how cryptic: only a month has passed and I already cannot find the best answer, only that it included CySuiteUSB program and a guide in which order to flash what.
So I took some test photos with the Canon 1100Da, N 150/750 on the HEQ5 setup, 4 minutes subs. Ten for the M13 globular cluster, and six for the M57 Ring Nebula. Each at ISO 100 – not that far from the city center (Bortle scale 6-7 if not 8 – better to the north).
M13 test
M57 test
M57, second processing
M57, 3rd processing
Sunspot 2661
A few clear hours, in conjunction with my free time, allowed me to take some photos: the Sun, the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn. I still could not find Enceladus. The setup: N150/750 and MC 102/1300 on the HEQ5, Scopium and CCD Labs Q-Guide webcam.
I resurrected an old project of mine, a Raspberry Pi with a camera put on a time lapse duty. Right now it is pointed towards East, and takes a picture every minute. I captured several Venus rises (the planet is the morning star right now), Sunrises of course, and some atmospheric optics too.
On 2017-04-01 I acquired some light from M104 Sombrero Galaxy (Virgo, 7.9m [wiki]), but the raws turned out to be of worse than expected quality so I didn’t invest the usual amount of time into developing the final picture. Equipment: modded HEQ5, N 150/750, Baader MPCC Mark III, Canon 1100D mod. 14 x ISO 3200, 1 min. As smudges, there are also some faint galaxies in the frame:
M 104 – Sombrero Galaxy
