Eta Carina in Ha

[AlexN]

Here it is... My first Eta Carina... AND my first Ha shot..

2hrs captured in Ha Light with a Lumicon 13nm Ha filter.

12x10min
Megrez 102 + QHY8 (Bin2x2)
Gain 10
Offset 125

Hope you like it as much as I do...

[multiweb (Marc)]

Wow! That's great Alex. You've got to be happy with that. My Ha filter is still on order and I can't wait to try it on the QHY8. Did you use the clear nose piece to image or the UV/IR filter with the Ha?

[AlexN]

I used the clear nose piece to image with the Ha filter..

I read somewhere that using the Ha + UV/IR brought it down to something like 45nm... I wanted to kill off the excessive light pollution in the south east (Brisbane city is directly beneath Eta as it rises) So I figured going as narrow bandwidth as possible would be a good idea..

Oh, And yes, Im stoked! Its my desktop background.. it sure is sweet spread over 52 inches!

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by AlexN

Oh, And yes, Im stoked! Its my desktop background.. it sure is sweet spread over 52 inches!

Bet you are! Now I REALLY can wait anymore to get my filter. You got the high-res version posted anywhere?

[kinetic (Steve)]

<writes>

"FOR SALE:

Getting out of hobby sale:

It's all got to go...."



Steve

[AlexN]

Thanks steve. I must admit, now that autoguiding is working I feel like theres no stopping me.. The only thing slowing me down now is pointing accuracy, which seems rather inconsistant at best...

Last night, the mount landed M20 on the center of the CCD, missed M42 by about 5°, landed the flame on the ccd (had to tweak it to get the horsie in too) landed eta dead center in the CCD... who understands it...

[winensky]

Originally Posted by AlexN

Last night, the mount landed M20 on the center of the CCD, missed M42 by about 5°, landed the flame on the ccd (had to tweak it to get the horsie in too) landed eta dead center in the CCD... who understands it...

I am no expert but with my GEM mount the three main consistancy factors seem to be:

1. A level scope.

2. Alignment of the OTA with the mount axis so they both point at the same thing.

3. Even the slightest play in the worm gears or collette will cause the scope to rotate slightly out of the original alignment when the balance shifts as you slew to new objects, (especially when you cross the meridian). This will also stuff up your polar alignment.

I don't know if any of these are applicable to your set up but it might help.

[Matty P (Matt)]

Awesome shot of Eta Carina Alex. Now that you have got your guiding working there is no stopping you.

[Craig_L]

Hi Alex, just noticed this post. Lots of long nights coming up if you are doing Halpha as well. Just a comment, do some of those stars have holes in the centre? What would be causing that?

Craig

[AlexN]

Thanks for all the comments...

Craig - Yes they do... I was waiting for someone to notice.. It was caused by me setting the wrong gain an offset settings for the camera, the stars brighter stars all fully saturated in 10 minutes as my offset was to high at 130 and gain at 20%. Next time i get it out, Gain at 1 and offset at 116 like I've used before

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Hi Alex.
You must be pulling a few all nighters? Or are you getting up early for this?
Fantastic effort!
Beaut images too.

[AlexN]

This shot and the horse head were one night.. I also collected about 1.5hrs of Ha on Orion.. I was up imaging until the eastern horizon started to brighten.. then I brought the laptop inside, transfered subs onto the desktop, set up DSS to do a stack of each set, then crashed.. woke up, processed and posted images, went back to bed for a few hours