Horse and Flame

[ZeroID]

A brilliant night last night, clear stable skies, no moon, no clouds and a gentle Southerly. I had both the Lunt and the 10" Dob out.
Lunt and 450D were imaging the Alnitak region with fingers crossed. 100 x 30 sec Frames @ ISO1600. With Russell's processing advice and some gentle tweaking I made some progress in my imaging skills repertoire.

Also did some viusal on Jupiter with the DOB, then some video I need to process. But saw all the Bands and 4 moons. Unbeleivable for saying it was still quite low in my NE sky. Pic to come (I hope)

[Ryderscope]

I enjoyed reading your imaging/observing report Brent as I can identify with the great feeling that comes from a good night out under the stars enjoying clear/stable conditions. Dropping in a forum post at 6.20 after packing up is a great way to finish before calling it a night.

[rustigsmed]

Yep I agree with Rodney :thumbsup: sounds like you had a ripper night, you've got the HH clearly this time too Brent - pretty hard going in summer with a dslr and 30 sec subs!

hoping it will be ok in Melbourne tonight :question: but its going to be warm for the dslr :sadeyes:. I'm a fan of the imaging and dob viewing combo too :thumbsup:

Rusty

[Ross G]

Nice capture Brent.

Try using the ICNR on the Canon. It should help improve the noise.

Good luck.

Ross.

[ZeroID]

Rodney > Nope, I went to bed about midnight. Processed the image at work early next morning and tweaked it. Your 6:20am is our 8:20 am ( or 9:20 if you're not on Daylight savings ) and I start quite early so I got my 'beauty sleep', not that it worked of course :P And I have access to heaps of IT hardware at work and good internet access.

Ross > Not sure if ICNR is even turned on, must check. Would rather not slow the imaging process if possible as my outside time can be quite limited. At less than an hour exposure I do have to push the processing a bit to get results so it's probably a factor.

Rusty > 30-40 second subs is about the limit on a very good night. Possibly 60 if I want to really work the processing but the SNR really gets poor after that. The combination of no moon, southerly etc is the key in Auckland. Clears the dust away up north with cold Antartic clean air and stabilises the CBD thermal effect. :thumbsup: Our summer heat is a bit lower than yours, ambient about 18* dropping to maybe 15* over the session. Sensor temp was holding at about 26*. Manageable.