resistance is futile - M42 with a twist

[h0ughy]

probably i should have dumped this in the equipment section but i though i might as well shove it here. i tested the dome tracking last night by imaging m42 (yes i know) from dusk til about 11.30 until it became rather cloudy! the rotation was successful, though i still havent been able to link it up wit hthe sky6 yet - still working on that but the ascom drivers and gemini drivers are working a treat:D I set it and then left it until late - no inspections, i wanted to see how this beast would handle it. just wish the clear sky stayed?:sadeyes: looking at the subs there was a lot of high cloud drifting through the 605 second and 300 second shots. i was using APT 1.4 to take the exposures on one PC and the other was guiding and tracking the mount with ascom and PHD. All UPS's worked well. So all in all it would have been a great image run - if only the cloud stayed away. wont bother to process these images as all the deep shots are cloud affected, but i love the automation (of sorts ;) )

[allan gould]

Way to go David. Good shots and glad its comming together.

[h0ughy]

Thanks Al, it has been a battle
2 dead PC's in the process and i ccannot number the amount of hours spent trying to get theSky6 working with it. One crucial clue was to have the gemini on a permanent powered dedicated com port and the dome on the USB/serial - the fine tweaking was crucial.

As for the image - you can see i had a plan to resolve the core then work my way out for all the fine nebulousity, does earth bound nebulousity count ;)? i may still process it just to see what comes from it - going to be cloudy for the next two weeks anyway .......


as for the cls filter - have a look at the rainbow effect on the spikes made from the bhatnov mask - notice the gaps;) colour balancing this beastie is a big problem:question:

[troypiggo]

Hey, wow. Hadn't thought of that. You can really notice it. Kinda cool.

[tornado33]

Cant wait to see the finished result, the subs look great.
Scott

[h0ughy]

well not really here is an example of pre CLS filter days and post and you can see the colour shift.

the difference in background is one was during twighlight and the other night time . But you can certainly see the colourshift or missing link ;)

[h0ughy]

i will drop over the data for you to play with scott

[RobF]

Nice to hear you're beating all that gear into submission David. What's APT sorry? And while I'm being nosey, how did you set up the nice animated pdf? :D

[h0ughy]

apt is here and for canon dslr users a great tool (http://www.ideiki.com/astro/Default.aspx)

Acrobat pro 9

and practice make for a decent image one day:lol:

[RobF]

Aha. Thanks for that :thumbsup:

[h0ughy]

well it got the better of me - i did a very quick process just to see what the data was like - very average:rofl:

[rcheshire]

Is that the CLS-CCD filter or the CLS?

[h0ughy]

cls ccd

[tornado33]

Still plenty of detail in the nebula.
Scott