M4 - A night to forget...

[cybereye]

Hello everyone!

I had such big plans for last night. I wanted to try and image NGC6520/B86 but my mount had other ideas! Well actually, it wasn't so much my mount but my poor setting up which meant that my initially alignment was off. This meant that no matter how much I tried with the Goto I could not find my target. :sadeyes:

So, rather than pack up everything after 3 hours of setting up and the subsequent frustration, I settled on M4 as it was easy to find. Not my favourite target, in fact not a target I like at all. Anyway I imaged for an hour (20 x 3 minute subs) and the result is attached. I used my method to compensate for the UHC-S filter and I am (happily :D) getting colours in the stars.

Other points - RC8 on an HEQ5 Pro mount, QHY8L OSC and guiding with a QHY5/ST80 combo and PHD.

It's not much but I'm so desperate to image that I'm posting it anyway...

Cheers,
Mario

[RobF]

Sounds like you need to get to grips with plate solving Mario? No more getting lost and you can correct your pointing model as you go by Sync'ing on each plate solve too.

Nice M4 - at least you bagged one in the end!

[strongmanmike]

Well, that's the way it was always done before GOTO..see, we are spoiled now :shrug: :lol: The result of your frustrations is really quite a nice image so Fa bene, non male per una notte di lavoro :thumbsup:

Mike

[Lee]

Agree on both! Nice image, and once you start plate solving, you'll wonder what you did before (actually you'll know what you did - missed targets! :) )....

[jsmoraes]

And ... M4 is very hard to shoot because of some interestelar clouds, coloring it with difuse pink :(

Despite it, it is a nice image. Very good colors of stars. Congratulations!

[cybereye]

Thanks Rob - would you believe that I have Astrotortilla on my laptop and not once during my frustrating searches did I think of using it!!! Must have been all that red wine I'd had at lunch... :lol:



Grazie Mille Mike. Half the problem with my searching was that I was on my knees trying to look up through the viewfinder when the scope was pointing to close to zenith! I think you'll agree it's not the easiest thing to do! I certainly had trouble latching on to something that I could recalibrate the Goto with! Maybe next time I should lie on the ground....:question:



Thanks Lee. Yep, next time I will remember that I have Astrotortilla for plate solving on my laptop...I think this is a good time to use an old Greek saying that Efie made popular all those years ago.. "How embarrassment!":P



Thanks Jorge. I've never been happy with my previous attempts with M4 so am rather pleased that I managed to get the star colours that I have. :)



As an aside, when I was processing my data, I noticed that the brighter stars had a dark cross in them. They're still visible in my final large image so I've zoomed and cropped a couple of stars from my image as an example and have attached that image here. I'm thinking it's caused by the veins and secondary mirror of my RC8 - anybody care to express an opinion as to a possible cause?

[jsmoraes]

August, 4 I shoot Alpha Centaurus A and B with reflector newtonian and they show something alike, and I think because of refraction over diffraction of Airy disc by secondary. Would be it ? :question:

[Ross G]

Nice looking capture Mario.

I know your pain!

Ross.

[astronobob]

Thats pretty dam nice Mario :thumbsup: I also did this a last month but only tracking with 30 sec subs, so had to go find it to compare, , I soon closed my image :sadeyes: and peered into yours for a while :thumbsup:
NIce work & good show mate !