M16

[AlexN]

Well at 5hrs 40mins worth of 5 minute subs I'm ready to call it a day on this one. I am overall happy with it but I lost plenty of data to a declination guiding issue. The telescope is on the work bench right now being shortened to accommodate the adaptive optics unit I have here for it. Hopefully that will help to address my problems.

Funnily enough, no darks for this one. When I calibrate this image with darks from my library I seem to loose data and gain noise. Something is amiss there I think.

8" f/5 newt.
Mpcc
Sbig st2000xcm @ -15C
Belt driven heq5 pro.

[rustigsmed]

Looks good Alex!

Russ

[strongmanmike]

Nice result Alex, good luck on the work bench :thumbsup:

Mike

[AlexN]

All back together tonight and currently imaging ngc253 again, guiding @ 5hz with ao. Sure makes a cheap mount appear to be a precision instrument.

[gregbradley]

A good result Alex. Darks need to be redone every now and then.
Perhaps you can try using adaptive dark with a good bias. CCDstack will do that. It can be more accurate at times.

Ideally darks match the lights in duration and temperature.

Greg.

[AlexN]

Thanks Greg.

I have a dark library but it was all recorded during summer when the cooling was pumping at 85% to reach -15c. Now imaging at -15c with only 48% cooling power. I wonder if that extra power consumption of the tec introduced electrical noise? I will recapture a series of darks tonight and see how it goes.