Well, I was too excited to get out there and try my new baby out - so...
1) No polar alignment whatsoever - apart from rough compass-augmented plonking.
2) PHD straining to keep the scope pointed somewhere near the target.
3) Only single 30 sec frames each of RGB, 45 on Luminance at -20 (only 38% cooler power). Will do another at -25 or so soon.
4) Sky-90's flattener hasn't arrived yet - so comets in the corners.
5) Rough focus - she'll be right!
Could I care? NO! I have COLOUR man! COLOUR!! Woohoo! This is my first combined colour image, and I'm tickled puce!
6) Rough processing (alignment and combining) in Maxim and re-sizing to 1024 px in Photoshop. No colour adjustment at all. As she comes. Quick 'n dirty with no regard to noise control or zone editing. LOL!
Here it is - no cropping, so all the corner nasties of the Sky-90 are left for your viewing pleasure. Please, please arrive flattener!!
Try the method Doug (Hager) posted a while ago (in the equipment or camera forum I think?). Take you all of 2 minutes. Remember though if you change it for different objects you will have to shoot a new dark library for each setting. Best just to set and forget and get on with the fun of taking pics.
Looks like the goods Chris, your underway.
Mines shooting a new library tonight with new settings.
4.5hours for a basic dark library
Know what you mean Robin. Once I got my OS and gain settings right I put the camera in a nice dark spot and shot 10 subs for each setting to combine into a master. I have 30s, 60s,120s, 5 min, 10 min, 15 min and 20 min darks in both 1 x 1 and 2 x 2 bin modes. I started on sun morning and had time to machine a collar for an EQ6, have lunch, watch TV and cook a BBQ for tea before it finished . Great pastime on a cloudy day.
I've just discovered this morning, that in my haste, I hadn't even tightened the clamp on my forward leg after leveling last night. It was completely undone and loose.
Tonight looks as though it's going to be OK too, so I'll do it properly this time - and get some proper subs done.
Looks great Chris. I'll have to wait until next year before I can join the CCD brigade - but I think I've gotten my fair share of new toys this year...
Looking really nice Chris. There is nothing like having a first attempt and getting it to work. From now on its getting all the really little things sorted out. Great first shot with promise of better things. Id love one of those cameras.
Frank - I used a trial version of MaximDL v5. I tried the EZcap but really don't like it very much. It's a bit clunky and needs more polish. I'm going to fork out the US$500 asking price for Maxim, unless I find an alternative that works as well. I'm going to give Nebulosity2 a chance, but haven't been able to get it to recognise my filter wheel for some reason. ASCOM incompatibilities maybe?
