I often marvel at the sophistication of equipment that is available to amateur astronomers, and given today was first light for my AO-X, I'm happy to say that sense of awe continues.
Seeing in Sydney was not great. Convective cloud and blustery conditions prevailed. But, as the postman had delivered a custom adapter from the USA late afternoon, I figured it was time to end a 4 year wait....
Software and calibration routines worked seamlessly, even better there was a suitably bright guide star to allow a 10Hz guide rate with none other than NGC 253 nicely centred in a rather vast Honders + STX 16803 field.
Swiftly passing cumulus allowed only a single 10 minute exposure.
Not flats, they will have to wait until I can get some twilight data...hopefully tomorrow..
I stress this was a *single* 600 second image, from Sydney's light polluted suburbs. No colour, noise as expected....but....I think the system shows much promise
Send it down my way. I will test it for you. Seeing is good at Clayton. Nice single sub. Not sure about what is going on in the bright stars though. Looking forward to future results.
WOW. The stars are very sharp, some of the close doubles can be almost spilt. Mega data up and hold on.
An AO-X may be the next thing on my list of wishes, my scope and mount are now showing the limit of my seeing here at Warwick.
But is there any technology that can remove or see through clouds.
Justin
Yes, it's called Hubble
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Haese
Send it down my way. I will test it for you. Seeing is good at Clayton. Nice single sub. Not sure about what is going on in the bright stars though. Looking forward to future results.
Ah, yes the bright stars had that MaxIm DDP bounce (serves me right for posting so quickly) ....now fixed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alpal
That's going to be great when you do a whole set of subframes.
I can see that it's so sharp.
Ta, that's the plan...but being on the scope for the first time....
Quote:
Originally Posted by renormalised
The extra subs will work a treat on this one, Peter. It's a good shot as it is
Quote:
Originally Posted by RobF
Impressive!
Thanks... AO on a 16803 has changed my thinking. The signal is way better than expected with very tight FWHM's, I suspect it may lead to some impressive mega-data
Last edited by Peter Ward; 05-11-2013 at 10:02 AM.
do you have a rotator on that scope? Or does the STX find a guide star with ease?
Pete
I do have a rotator, but not on that scope.... I doubt it would be possible on the Honders due limited back-focus (see attached pic..BTW the RHA tube has a 14" OD..it' a big camera! ).
That said, after slewing to NGC253, several usable guide stars were in the field of the guide chip.
Its quite a slim unit too. I know you only used it once but any feel for how it compares to earlier AO units?
Greg.
Ta Greg. No decon....that would look very ugly with just 600 seconds of data
My impression was it responded faster with less overshoot compared to earlier models. Running it at 10Hz, the guide star looked like it was magnetically locked into position. Quite amazing for such a large (80mm) modulated aperture.
Nice single sub. Not sure about what is going on in the bright stars though. Looking forward to future results.
