I recently replaced my JMI Motorised Focuser with the Primalucelab ESATTO 2” Focuser as I discovered that my focus was shifting over a period of 1 hour or so of imaging. The JMI focuser was loaded with the weight of a Tak x0.8 Reducer, USB Colour Filter Wheel and ASI1600 Camera. I initially thought it may be temperature related, but in the end concluded it was more likely a mechanical issue, I was simply asking too much of the JMI.
Whatever it was, it has now been fixed so as a test target, I selected one of the brighter Milky Way Globular Clusters, UKS 1 (magnitude 17.29) to compare to a previous effort, which saw me rejecting a lot of out of focus frames due to the gradual focus drift as the scope tracked the objects higher towards the zenith.
Over a couple of nights under Bortle 6 skies in Brisbane, I took the following:
LUM: 30 secs x 120 (60 Mins)
RED: 30 secs x 40 (20 Mins)
GREEN: 30 secs x 40 (20 Mins)
BLUE: 30 secs x 40 (20 Mins)
IR807: 60 secs x 30 (30 Mins)
The ‘scope is a Tak Mewlon 210 F11.5 DK with Tak Reducer/Flattener x0.8. A plate solve gave me a measured focal length of 2080mm at F9.9.
I threw all the frames into the Batch Processing Script of PixInsight, adding Bias, Darks and Flats and PI took care of the change in camera orientation and framing over the 2 nights, as I have to set up and tear down each night.
I added the IR807 as a Luminance Frame in PS CC, which brought out the faint UKS-1 and the even smaller and fainter Crouch-1 (VVV GL001), which I believe was discovered independently by Steve Crouch and professional astronomers.
Steve Crouch’s independent discovery images can be found here:
http://members.pcug.org.au/~stevec/u..._STL11K_RC.htm
http://members.pcug.org.au/~stevec/u...sta_GCL001.jpg
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=82032
The last 2 images (annotated) have been rotated 90 degrees CCW to better show the 2 faint Globs.
I wasn’t game enough to explore the depths of PI to figure out where the blue star halos were coming from in my images.
Cheers
Dennis