Paramount
01-11-2008, 12:05 PM
Hi all
After finishing doing the data for OIII and SII channels of my colour Horsehead image there was just enough light left for me to try a test shot of the monkey head nebula in Orion. I've always wanted to see just how far I could push the Paramount ME before it showed trailing on the stars and I think it may still take me a bit longer to find out. I set the exposure to 20 minutes and let it run while I made some coffee. The resulting image below is from a single unguided 20 minute subframe with a Ha filter, the only processing was to some sharpening using Noel's tools, some noise reduction as the image was very noisy due to daylight, no dark subtraction and only one frame, minor curves and levels were used to help show some detail. The polar alignment was within 0.2 arcmin (12 arcsec) of the celestial pole. I thought 10 minutes unguided was fantastic but this is just ridiculous. No PEC training or second party software was used to increase the accuracy of the tracking, essentially the Paramount is still being used as it came out of the box.
Best wishes
Gordon
http://www.imagingtheheavens.co.uk/USERIMAGES/monkeytest.jpg
After finishing doing the data for OIII and SII channels of my colour Horsehead image there was just enough light left for me to try a test shot of the monkey head nebula in Orion. I've always wanted to see just how far I could push the Paramount ME before it showed trailing on the stars and I think it may still take me a bit longer to find out. I set the exposure to 20 minutes and let it run while I made some coffee. The resulting image below is from a single unguided 20 minute subframe with a Ha filter, the only processing was to some sharpening using Noel's tools, some noise reduction as the image was very noisy due to daylight, no dark subtraction and only one frame, minor curves and levels were used to help show some detail. The polar alignment was within 0.2 arcmin (12 arcsec) of the celestial pole. I thought 10 minutes unguided was fantastic but this is just ridiculous. No PEC training or second party software was used to increase the accuracy of the tracking, essentially the Paramount is still being used as it came out of the box.
Best wishes
Gordon
http://www.imagingtheheavens.co.uk/USERIMAGES/monkeytest.jpg