An excercise in futlity

[TrevorW]

How many have done this or similar

taken 1hr 18min in 6 minute subs and ended up missing the target altogethor :shrug:

a starfield somewhere near NGC3576

:P

[gregbradley]

Oops! Nice star field anyway.

On occasion when my go-tos have been way off it amazes me how hard it can be to locate some objects with a smallish CCD. A good way to spend an hour or so! It only has to be a fraction off.

Greg.

[desler]

As Greg said, a very nice star field!

Almost as good as my 100 minutes of 10 mins subs through the Bathinov mask!

It's all good fun.......

I've got the permanent pier in, and everything on top under a Telegizmo cover and for about three seconds last night, I could see a star!!!!!!
At least you got to see a star field!:P:P:P

Darren

[troypiggo]

Oh dear :) Haven't done that yet, but sure I will...

Nice colours and field regardless.

You don't check composition with some test frames first?

[TrevorW]

Yeah Troy I do but with some targets you need to do long subs and even then you are not sure if you've got it as they are very faint in unprocessed TIF files even after some stretching but not having imaged the area before I wasn't sure what to expect

[gregbradley]

What capture software are you using? CCDsoft stretches the downloaded image so even a faint galaxy will show in a 4-10 second image. If it won't show even with that then it would probably not show in a normal long exposure either (say 2-3 hours total).

One exception is the Vela Supernova Remnant which hardly shows anything under a 1 minute exposure unless you are using O111 filters.

I sometimes open up a downloaded 10 minute test frame in CCDstack to check it out before committing to a 5 hour run. Especially to check focus and guiding errors.

Greg.

[TrevorW]

Thanks Greg

using Maxim to capture at moment but will try Nebulosity

a bit of inexperience and impatience not knowing what to expect from the OSC

[renormalised]

That is a special image....think of it this way. You've taken the piccie of at least 40 to 50 civilisations, there:)

No obvious targets but there's certainly something there apart from just stars:)

[h0ughy]

well not bad - i have several pointless hours under the belt - with more to come probably

[David Fitz-Henr]

Well, at least you got something! I remember years ago taking some 60min hand guided exposures with film, only to find that I had the exposure set at 1/1000 sec !?!

Anyway, which starfield near NGC3576 were you after ???

[Tom Davis]

I have done this at least a half dozen times! Very frustrating for sure.

Tom

[TrevorW]

Well it's nice to know we all make mistakes but it's all part of the fun I was aiming for NGC3576

next time I'll nail the little bugger

[multiweb]

:lol: ... Story of my (astro)life.

[leinad]

Using binning 2x2 or 4x4, will assist in boosting the faint ones to test exp/frame the shot where needed.

[dcalleja]

I have done this also - Nice star colours though.

My other good trick is to set the imager running in single image mode without setting it to auto (ie: take 8 or 10 images) and walk off for an hour or so. Much fun.

[Hagar]

I think we all have done this at one stage or another. Youre no orphan.

Nice star field Trevor.

[TrevorW]

Thanks for the feedback

Marc. Daniel, Dan and Dougie

now here is where I am

http://live.astrometry.net/status.php?job=alpha-201005-45866439

11:17:12 -62.12.26

NGC3576

11:11:32 -61.21.44

Cheers

[jjjnettie]

:lol: I know someone who not only excels at shooting through his bart mask, but on special occasions likes to capture in Small Jpeg too.

[Octane]

Trevor,

I did this the other night. The Gemini wasn't playing ball. I was after the Rho Ophiuchus region and shot off a 5 minute test exposure. It was a very pretty starfield but was nowhere near Antares!

I think we've all done this!

H