After seeing the version from Mike and Trish's last year I have been waiting for an opportunity to give this a crack myself. Finally did it last night! It was very breezy and Meteoblue was giving solid "Red" for seeing, I think the best I managed was 4.69" on one of my 1-2s exposures. When I started imaging it I was considering doing 2x2 binning but for whatever reason I decided to stick with unbinned (I'm an idiot!) so I have since down sampled 50%. I guess I didn't truly appreciate how how the seeing was until I checked the FWHM in CCDInspector this morning.
This is 13x900s Ha of NGC 300. I have hopeful plans of getting LRGB data at Snake Valley at the end of Sept, will probably ditch this data though as it is pretty terrible. Had to ditch 2 subs that were heavily wind effected, I am kinda surpirsed to get much of anything last night. If it was with my EQ6 I wouldn't have been able to do 60s exposures a lot of the time, the DDM60 is a LOT stiffer.
A good start, Colin. Until recently my longest integration was on NGC 300 -- it's a dim one!
I think my current longest is NGC 2070 which is also one of my first serious images a telescope and camera ago So indecisive as to what I want to put my effort into. Currently trying to decide between NGC 300 and the Fornax Galaxy Cluster region at Snake Valley.
NGC 300 certainly isn't bright though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike
PIA conditions aside...have to say, a Ha image of NGC 300 looks pretty cool . You'll get there Col..and when you do..look out World!
Mike
900s is the longest I have managed so far with the DDM60, was getting an aspect of 20 though as opposed to 4-8 at 300s. Theoretically it means that I am dealing with a non repeatable error like hysteresis or a slow moving focuser slop. In saying that, it still ain't any worse than achieved with the EQ6 at the same time except that it is consistent! No random 130 aspects
There it is! Totally convincing and successful despite the seeing. You're up and running and hopefully addicted, should the air improve.
We used to manage 1 hour subs with a C11 on an EQ6. Our technique included having it intentionally very east-heavy to handle RA backlash, and having a great big spring (about a foot long) pulling the dec axis round, also to take up backlash. We put a 3 or 4 foot long aluminium strut between the nose of the scope and the counterweight. Permanent pier, and the polar axis intentionally out a tiny bit so that guiding was always to the south, working against the spring. Looked silly but it really worked. Mind you, we were looking over hot-tiled suburbia, and the seeing ghastly, so perhaps it didn't work as well as we thought it did.
Looking forward to more H-alpha galaxy shots, Colin
hi Colin I like your image considering all the elements you had to battle I think its a pretty good result thanks for sharing
cheers Pete
Quote:
Originally Posted by alan meehan
gotta agree with that Colin not a bad image at all
AL
Just another night in Melbourne I am happy with what has come of it, would have turned out cleaner if I had have 2x2 binned but the seeing has made the data not worth using (even down sampled) in the long run. Always nice to have something to process though!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Placidus
There it is! Totally convincing and successful despite the seeing. You're up and running and hopefully addicted, should the air improve.
We used to manage 1 hour subs with a C11 on an EQ6. Our technique included having it intentionally very east-heavy to handle RA backlash, and having a great big spring (about a foot long) pulling the dec axis round, also to take up backlash. We put a 3 or 4 foot long aluminium strut between the nose of the scope and the counterweight. Permanent pier, and the polar axis intentionally out a tiny bit so that guiding was always to the south, working against the spring. Looked silly but it really worked. Mind you, we were looking over hot-tiled suburbia, and the seeing ghastly, so perhaps it didn't work as well as we thought it did.
Looking forward to more H-alpha galaxy shots, Colin
I had managed 1 hour subs with my EQ6 but it was flakey at best and was not consistent. I didn't have any fangled contraptions though! Would have been an interesting sight to see.
Quote:
Originally Posted by atalas
The conditions were a good test for the mount Colin...past with flying colours!
I am still playing around with the mount at the moment, learning its ins and outs. It is very different in operation to the EQ6, all about perfect balance and modelling.
I had noticed a couple of little smudges and thought I'd run it through the Pix Insight annotation script to see what would show up. I was really quite surprised, there were a number of bits that I had assumed were just dim stars or noise.
A promising start, Colin, and probably quite useful data so long as you use it for colour and not luminance.
Cheers,
Rick.
Questionable. Even after a software 2x2 bin in PI it still has a FWHM about 2.7 pixels, it really was horrible seeing Good for just some mucking around though so in that respect it was time well spent.
. You'll get there Col..and when you do..look out World! 
I am happy with what has come of it, would have turned out cleaner if I had have 2x2 binned but the seeing has made the data not worth using (even down sampled) in the long run. Always nice to have something to process though!
