It's clear here although it's pretty wet and I can see misty going past the Moon.
Trying some O11 on NGC 6188 to see if it helps. I am charging the observatory battery using a car charged off the vans new batteries..wasteful but I can't be bothered putting petrol in the Genny.
A duck just now landed on the dam ..I didn't know they flew around at night.
Alex
This commentary is top notch. I'd be surprised at a duck making a night mission, too.
Tonight is over for me, we got a nice, simple refractor (a sw 102/500 on the gso skyview alt-az mount) for my daughter today, so we spent a bit of time learning how to aim with a red dot finder, how to take pics with a dslr in the back (lots of moon shots), then did some star hopping and found Ptolemy's cluster. Saw 4 moons and the stripes of Jupiter, too. She loves it.
I mucked around with imaging, got sharpcap polar aligning going, got the guide camera focussed, all seemed good but in the end just couldnt get phd2 and apt to get along. When Ev went to bed i had a fun little cluster session with it... i really love the wishing well cluster so much. I think its my pick of the bunch so far. Happy to have a simple set up where i can relax and not burn brain fuel working out software issues
Epic night here down in the Shoalhaven with good seeing , nice and clear , no wind and the moon has gone
Just finished capturing 3 hours on Centaurus A and started on M20 Trifid
Should finish around 2am
Best night for months
Tomorrow night looks ok too
It went a little wobbly here but picked up.
This little HEQ5 mount is not bad. I am getting 3 minute unguided subs which is rather ironic as I downloaded PHD again ..I am glad I tried these 3 minute subs before PHD as I would have given it all the credit.
Just for fun tried 500 gain in HA and although burnt out a little showed so much more in the darker regions, anyways I can use it.
Cold however it's is near zero now.
Alex
It is 9C here but the humidity is 94%, but thankfully I am in the raised observatory on carpet and not on wet ground. I have been working on Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars with the 8" Classical Cassegrain. Seeing was not bad, very stable sky, no swimming, but the transparency was not great (I suspect a bit of fog is settling).
Started about 1:30am with collimation tuning, or that was the plan, turns out it is still spot on. Jupiter was great, all the band's in their glory and the five bright Moons were all lined up on either side (3 &2). Saturn was larger than I recall from a few weeks ago, and will continue to increase in size leading up to the Opposition on 21 July. Hopefully this will help with ring resolution, as currently I believe I will never see the Encke Gap with the CC, just not enough aperture. There was good crisp definition in the rings, and the Cassini Division was very sharp, out at the edge of the A-ring I could see what I believe is the Minima as it feathers out but the Enke Gap eludes me.
From a power standpoint, the conditions limited me to 200x as the sweet spot tonight, which is my 12mm EP on the CC (2400 fl). I tried a 6mm (300x) but while producing a larger planet it lack the clarity of the 12mm. I also tried barlowing the 12mm but it produced the same fuzzy image. Packed up after a tour of doubles out to the east and a look at 47 Tuc, which i had not seen with the CC, it was very large and reasonably bright. Closed the roof at 3:30am and turned on the dehumidifier. A pretty good night.
It settled a bit here after the clouds stopped rolling through but they left their dewy presence all over my gear
As the Moon was still up, I started off with a punt at the Keyhole region of Eta Carinae in Ha before it got too low into the soup.
Glen, don't discount the chances of seeing the Encke Gap with an 8"... I've seen it visually through my Edge8 on several occasions. Of course, the chances improve with a mono imager on the back
So it being reasonably clear around 4 pm I decided to get a little more serious so replaced the 80 mm with the 115 mm, set up the double bracket and put on the finder scope and the guide scope and camera..came in went out when near dark getting everything in order, dark arrived, start tracking, check camera is capturing...now let's get the guiding working..after realising I needed another cable to connect the mount and putting it in place let's switch on the recently newly downloaded PHD...now how did this go??? Mmmm yes connect everything and away we Go...mmm a black screen, take off lens cap, still black, check cables..no..restart lappy that often helps ..no...damn guiding just another thing to go wrong...turned around to see what the Milky Way is doing...mmm maybe the fact those black clouds is why my screen is black...oh well.
So covered it all up happy that everything is hopefully right to go...covering up makes the clouds go away.
Inside trying to stack five hours of one minute exposures with 3x drizzle of the Dragons it's been registering all afternoon and says only five hours to go..wait it now says six????
Had to start the Genny to charge the little battery to run the small charger to charge the main bank..need to sort that out but it's holding up and sorting will have to wait until daylight...what day is it?
Alex
Alex, if my recent experience is anything to go by, this cloud seems to disappear by midnight. It happened here three nights in a row this week.
It got foggy. And I had the 115 mm on the HEQ 5 and was getting trailing in RA..could not sort it out there and then not there..sent me bats...so I may take it off and go with the 80mm again ..I have things to do with the EQ 6 but no doubt the 115 mm will be happier on it...ob is being dismantled and it probably will be finished by Friday..thanks again for the heads up...latest idea for new scope..150 mm Espirit probably need a eq8 but I could get great results with little mucking about...stacked 6 hours of ha for dragons with another ten for other channels out of the 80mm I had to stay up all night to refill the genny as I now have my desk top here and stacking which is far better than the lappy..didnt not want things stopping mid way thru..or just near the end...and it's all 3x drizzle..faster on the desk top , says 8 processors working on it..but the ha took from 1 pm yesterday until 7 am this morning..the other channels only 75 subs and they are moving along.
Tonight held so much promise, a slight westerly breeze after sunset, clouds cleared off, humidity stayed around 50% (which is low for winter night time around here). A glance at the sky and it looked pretty stable, no obvious twinkling aloft. Woke up at moon set at (2:15am) and opened the observatory. Once again tonight I was hunting the Encke Gap (Saturn) and with Saturn above 70 degrees alt it seemed like the best night of the last three attempts. Sadly, it quickly proved to be the worst of the three sessions. I usually start with my 12mm EP on Saturn (which is just over 200x on the CC), but I quickly realised the usual crisp detail was missing, and pressing on to 300x was out of the question. It was so bad I could barely see the Cassini Division.
I changed over to Jupiter and it too lacked the snap I am used to. Had a quick look at Mars and Neptune just because they were there. Check some normally easy Doubles and then closed the roof. A waste of a seemingly good night. I will give it a rest now till after the full moon period. Hope others out tonight have had better conditions.
Looking good here nice strong wind to blow the moisture away, no clouds just a haze, plenty of Moon to see what I am doing, so cold I probably won't have to switch on the cooler...if I can do no more than get the eq6 polaligned it will be great. Next see if the mount likes the 115 mm and see what exposures I can get away with unguided..set the camera running in ha and tidy stuff if I can hack the cold. My Dragon data is almost near stacked so have a play with that ... All good.
Alex
A testing night for me in Brisbane. I have swapped out the Obsession 18 inch F4.5 3.1 inch Astrosystems secondary holder for a 3.5 inch Novak so that I can move the primary mirror up a bit to gain a bit of in focus without losing any aperture. Have also reduced the guide speeds on the Servo Cat. Interesting moving from collimating a 4 screw secondary holder to a 3 screw design.
OK my grizzle
I bent the bolts holding my pedestal for the mount only a couple of degrees..found the polar with pole master...but after I centred the little cross on soct I noticed it's moving only slightly..maybe the bolts are trying to bend back maybe things cooling...so coffee time...it can test your patience this game.
Alex
Things seem to be looking very promising along the east coast of NSW for the next few days of this week. The Bureau forecast charts show favourable high pressure and no onshore winds, leading up to the New Moon next Sunday. Hopefully the sunshine will dry out the ground and air. I am getting setup now for tonight. Good luck everyone.
Thanks Glen
It’s been a while since we have scored 3 good nights in a row in the Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong part of the east coast
Tonight , Monday and Tuesday nights are looking really good , just a light 5 to 10 km/hr westerly to keep the dew at bay, low Jetstream, low humidity and no moon until after midnight
Enjoy !!
CFN usually get it right 95% of the time but last night some high cloud rolled in from the SW into the Sydney basin and ended my imaging session at 11.15pm
I waited another hour but it was moving slowly so went to bed, probably would have cleared by 1.30am
Tonight hopefully will be a clean run from 6.30pm until the early hours
Fingers crossed
Same result here. Did get some lagoon and so I hope you all got some exposures.
Very nice out there tonight and still in the lagoon in Ha and Oiii. The tilt looks improved with a little tightening here and there but the filter is sticky .
Quote:
Originally Posted by Startrek
CFN usually get it right 95% of the time but last night some high cloud rolled in from the SW into the Sydney basin and ended my imaging session at 11.15pm
I waited another hour but it was moving slowly so went to bed, probably would have cleared by 1.30am
Tonight hopefully will be a clean run from 6.30pm until the early hours
Fingers crossed
Last night was cut short by that high cloud band that covered Sydney around 11pm
Tonight’s clear so gathering some more data on the Lagoon , guiding started off poor at 1.50 arc sec error around 30deg Alt but is improving slowly with altitude, it’s now 1.35 arc sec error at 45 deg but still ordinary
Going for 3 to 4 hours
This is what I have so far for my first Lagoon. A strange flower in HGOBO .The darks seem to make the Ha wild so need to iron out that and add more as it arrives.
