It was nice and clear last night (and cool). I saw M104 posted a little while back and thought I'd give it a go. It's relatively high above my place at the moment.
Guiding was terrible, I'm not sure why but the logs show it all over the place even though PHD drift alignment was almost spot on just before i started the sequence. I probably kicked the mount or something and didnt realize. Sat around 1.2 to 1.5 total error.
I still have a sensor thats a little tilted from the mods (the 60D has an adjustable sensor). I figured I'd just measure carefully and get it back as close as possible. Shouldn't be a problem..
I probably should have checked beforehand as the critical focus zone if I understand it right for my scope is 0.03mm. I assumed because half a mm looked doable with my tools that she'd be right. She was wrong, now I've opened it back up to adjust another four or five times. I'm getting there slowly, but I don't like pulling out all those ribbon cables so frequently.
50 x 180s ISO 800
30 x darks and flats
100 x bias, I made a new master this time, it seems better so I skipped superbias in PI.
A lot of cropping to hide the out of focus stars to the left of frame..
Thanks - I was quite surprised having never attempted it before. The galaxy itself came out nice and clean, although it was a lot cooler than last time I was out. Most of the subs were between 12 and 15c or round about, which I think helped a lot, plus these last adjustments to the sensor seem to have gotten it almost back into proper alignment.
