Wednesday, 11 May 2011

Normal Guiding Service Resumed

A little less drift, but again, seeing conditions not ideal, so I am just happy to be imaging M13 again...

I've just noticed PHD was set to not guide on declination, so recalibrating with it set to north.
After getting enough data on M13, although it's late, M57 (the Rin Nebula in Lyra) came up into view, above the dirty grey zone of the horizon.  This is one of the joys of imaging where an image seemingly so bland as a grey smudge, will turn into a beautiful nebula once enough data is captured.  Yes, the grey smudge in the middle is what I am so excited about...

When I zoom in, this is what the camera is capturing, a planetary nebula 2,300 years from earth:

Once the image is processed, although it won't be nearly as good as the colour image below (from Stellarium), it's one of the personal rewards of astrophotography.

Below is one 120 second image converted to colour.  No other processing...

I wish I had more time to get more data, but as is often the case, M57 will have to wait for another day until I and my equipment can do it justice.

Apart from the odd blip, as below, (probably caused by "stiction" (static friction in the gears) - the CG-5 mount is reknowned for it), guiding has been good tonight, just a pity I have to close up shop...  The clouds are due to descend for a few days however, so at least I have plenty of data to process.


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