By 9.30pm last night the sky above Mandurah was clear with nair a twinkle to be seen. BUT the beginning of the next ice age took its toll on my intentions....
I was getting sub arc-second tracking last night here! I'm glad I stayed up until the clouds parted. Hopefully more of the same tonight, and I still have the mount setup and polar aligned to perfection! And the automated meridian flips work!
Even at 6 or 7 degrees ambient my fingertips go numb. In my dotage
I am finding winter imaging[ or viewing] a real trial. Luckily for my
fingers, I get few chances here in winter. After the west coast of Tassie,
[where I used to live], this must be the cloudiest area in Oz. I've had one
useable night in the last 9 weeks, and expect an average of around 2
useable nights a month over July-September period.
raymo
Vote +1 on gtb an owl freezer suits, mine has been a great investment. You stay warm and toasty all night even lie on the ground and go to sleep if cloud rolls in.
Just picked up my bogan boots, jeebuz these things are huge!
I'm normally a size 12 or 13 depending on brand, but the 13 UGGs were too tight, so I had to get the 14/15
The extra-bogan lace-ups weren't available in this size, they offered to make them for me and ship to me for free, but I needed them by Thursday latest as I'm driving to Dryandra on Friday.
Oh well, I'll be warm.
i have just sold my trusty c102 f5 achro which i used as a guidescope atop my g11 and i am currently waiting for the new one, so these clear nights are killing me in more ways than one, luckily i have a lot of football to catch up on ha ha!
looks like it will be fantastic tonight especially for dslr imagers as the sensor will stay nice and cool!
pat
Oh yeah Jeans are useless. When I travelled thru Sweden I took a backpack full of clothes. One night it got to 14 below, I was wearing almost everything I had and was still cool. Not cold but cool.
I was wearing thermals, tracky pants and two pairs of jeans... I'd have put more on but it was getting a bit tight. The jeans were useless.
Looking good out there again tonight!
Just got home from work, once I've eaten and done my little bub duty, might get some practise in with the Astrotrac, get ready for this weekend at Dryandra
Just got home from work, once I've eaten and done my little bub duty, might get some practise in with the Astrotrac, get ready for this weekend at Dryandra
Shaping up to be another good night for Perth, until midnight anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rogerg
Dryandra ... nice! Astrotrac ... nice!
Yep and Yep
Tho the BOM forecast for Friday is possible showers, and Partially cloudy for Sat and Sun.... aargh!
Finally got out last night at 11:30
Got the Astrotrac setup and got PA as close as I could.
Tested for widefield at 105mm with a 5 min sub, no guiding, perfectly round stars. Good enough.
Sadly tho, the sub was totally washed out with light pollution.
I then reduced to 2 min subs.
Took 30 subs(1 hour) aimed at Rho Oph. The result was worse than a single 3min sub of the same region from Nannup
One powerball......
Shaping up to be another good night for Perth, until midnight anyway.
Yeah, think I'm out for tonight. Got some image processing to do amongst other life issues, no time to plan what new stuff I'd photograph.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrB
Finally got out last night at 11:30
Got the Astrotrac setup and got PA as close as I could.
Tested for widefield at 105mm with a 5 min sub, no guiding, perfectly round stars. Good enough.
That's the nice thing about the AT. It's PE is so good that if you get the alignment reasonable, it guides so nice. It's rare for me to have a problem with exposures shorter than 3 minutes.
Dunno why I bothered playing with this crappy data I got last night.
Here's the difference between nice dark country skies and suburban hell. Had to stretch heavily to get it even close.
From this day forward, I'm doing narrowband only from home.
Dunno why I bothered playing with this crappy data I got last night.
Here's the difference between nice dark country skies and suburban hell. Had to stretch heavily to get it even close.
From this day forward, I'm doing narrowband only from home.
Dunno why I bothered playing with this crappy data I got last night.
Here's the difference between nice dark country skies and suburban hell. Had to stretch heavily to get it even close.
From this day forward, I'm doing narrowband only from home.
love (actually hate!) that comparison simon, wish i had not seen that ha ha!
makes me wonder why we actually bother in the city, but i, like yourself wonder about narrowband, at least you are in rockingham
pat
I'd like to get in to narrowband but my CFW on my SBIG is only 5 position. Not really sure how to get around that and not mess up automation. Having two wheels doesn't work well for automation, and I'm not sure what 8+ position wheel would work well with the SBIG and CCDCommander etc, and not be enormously heavy. Until then I'm limited to CLRGB
Hi Pat, wonder no more. NB with the 60Da works fine.
The two pics linked below were taken at or around full moon.
Moon didn't really bother the Ha but the OIII fogged a bit but not a deal breaker. Light pollution had minimal effect, if any. These were 'wide' filters too, at 12nm.
Once I get the corrector spacing issue sorted I reckon I'll be pretty happy
works well for me. I admit though, the cold doesn't appeal these days. 
