Hi all
Last night was the first clear night in 5 days, and the only clear night predicted for the next 7. THere was still patchy cloud at times, but I wanted to tackle auto-guiding so I was ready for the next clear night.
Turns out auto-guiding is a snap
Especially with PHD Guiding and GPUSB. It was up and running almost immediately, so when the clouds did clear for an hour or two, I was able to get some
auto-guided imaging in!
All objects with:
Saxon ED80 on EQ6, auto-guided through 80mm refractor using DMK21AF04, PHD Guiding and GPUSB, WO 0.8x II reducer and Canon 350D.
NGC253 and NGC288
- 13x 180s exposures @ ISO800
NGC1365 and friends
- 5x 180s exposures @ ISO1600
M45
- 10x 180s exposures @ ISO1600
All dark frame subtracted and processed using ImagesPlus, post-processing in Photoshop.
I have learned that:
- 3 minutes is way too long for ISO1600, just too much noise. I'll stick to ISO800 from now on.
- clouds are very frustrating, especially when you're in the middle of a long exposure.
- Auto-guiding rocks! It's just so simple and easy, don't need to touch it! I'll never drift align again
- I hate light pollution and want dark skies
- I need a lot more exposures
- I hate setting up and packing away
- NGC1365 is small and faint, but it's near a galaxy cluster! (which i'll image on it's own next time)
- M45 is a challenging target! Needs a lot more, and longer, exposures.
- DSO imaging takes forever!
Thanks for looking.