At last, an image from the observatory! Whether it has been due to illness, study, university interviews or work; for one reason or another I haven't been out into the cold since the start of October....
It felt great to be out again and after a few (expected) teething problems everything began to work smoothly once again. I now have a QHY5 for guiding. This makes finding a guide star easier, no more mucking about with the guide rings at very obscure angles! I've also started to run the mount and guiding from a Samsung netbook and use a separate laptop for the actual image capturing. It all felt smoother this way with the laptops under less strain; always a good thing.
The image is just Hydrogen Alpha for now (therefore B&W) but will hopefully add some OIII as soon as possible. Although from looking around the web, I'm not convinced it will add much. As the central, subtle blue section is reflection nebula (like the Pleiades), it only shows up in RGB.... Oh well, will give the OIII a shot!
It felt great to be out again and after a few (expected) teething problems everything began to work smoothly once again. I now have a QHY5 for guiding. This makes finding a guide star easier, no more mucking about with the guide rings at very obscure angles! I've also started to run the mount and guiding from a Samsung netbook and use a separate laptop for the actual image capturing. It all felt smoother this way with the laptops under less strain; always a good thing.
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| The Pleiades, a reflection nebula |
The image is just Hydrogen Alpha for now (therefore B&W) but will hopefully add some OIII as soon as possible. Although from looking around the web, I'm not convinced it will add much. As the central, subtle blue section is reflection nebula (like the Pleiades), it only shows up in RGB.... Oh well, will give the OIII a shot!
Object: The Flaming Star Nebula, IC 405
Telescope: Skywatcher ED80
Camera: ATIK 314L+, -22C
Exposures: Ha - 19 x 600s, bin1x1, 3hrs10mins
Processing: DSS, PSCS5
