codemonkey
03-01-2019, 01:07 PM
I've imaged this target before, albeit briefly, but it looked like a good candidate to test out some new software. I've just switched from using SGP to using The Sky X, after ongoing dissatisfaction with SGP's auto focus routine.
TSX doesn't offer any automation itself, but it does provide a handy scripting interface if you're technically inclined. I built some scripts on top of Ken Sturrock's work and I'm now pretty happy with how it's all working. I can feed it a config file with a list of targets, set a minimum altitude for them and give the targets a priority so that it'll image target X until target Y is available for imaging etc.
The key thing that TSX offers me over SGP is the flexibility to integrate with whatever other software system looks interesting... for example Innovations Foresight have some new full frame guiding software that looks interesting and if I like it, I can make my scripts work with that instead of TSX's guiding. @focus3 looks like it works well, but if it doesn't I can interface with other software to do auto focus.
Seeing has been good lately, but I think TSX's @focus3 is working better for me as well. I've now seen the sharpest broadband subs I've ever done over the past few nights, with FWHM down to 1.64" on 300s subs (which are longer than I've been doing for a while now). Said subs were on a different target, not yet finished, but the NGC 1808 data was also quite good.
Full res available on Astrobin (https://www.astrobin.com/383938)
TSX doesn't offer any automation itself, but it does provide a handy scripting interface if you're technically inclined. I built some scripts on top of Ken Sturrock's work and I'm now pretty happy with how it's all working. I can feed it a config file with a list of targets, set a minimum altitude for them and give the targets a priority so that it'll image target X until target Y is available for imaging etc.
The key thing that TSX offers me over SGP is the flexibility to integrate with whatever other software system looks interesting... for example Innovations Foresight have some new full frame guiding software that looks interesting and if I like it, I can make my scripts work with that instead of TSX's guiding. @focus3 looks like it works well, but if it doesn't I can interface with other software to do auto focus.
Seeing has been good lately, but I think TSX's @focus3 is working better for me as well. I've now seen the sharpest broadband subs I've ever done over the past few nights, with FWHM down to 1.64" on 300s subs (which are longer than I've been doing for a while now). Said subs were on a different target, not yet finished, but the NGC 1808 data was also quite good.
Full res available on Astrobin (https://www.astrobin.com/383938)