Well the clouds mostly cleared at about 12:30 am this morning so I ended up staying up for most of the night playing around with the Autoslew software trying to get to grips on how it worked. Ended up working with a PA of 1 arcmin in ALT and 3.5 arcmin in AZ so given that I am quite happy with the tracking results.
The seeing was pretty terrible as I was expecting, not only because of the forecasted high level cloud which turned into passing haze by maybe 3:30 am but Meteoblue gave a "seeing" in the red (being really bad) so I was kinda surprised to be below 3.5" all night.
Both images are 12x300s so an hour on each. The first is the Helix while the second is NGC 456 which just happened to be a green smudge on TSX and I clicked on and said "Go for it!" They're pretty quick and dirty and so is the processing
Next thing to gets to grips with is the Sequence software, I read the manual over the weekend but at 4am trying to set it up, wasn't a good idea
Lovely round stars. Its always a pleasure to see them in the downloads. Its so easy to get eggy stars and it seems like a constant battle to get round stars so congrats!
That is a really nice mount Colin. i was just wondering, what happens if you lose power? i assume the direct drive just stops, is there a chance the scope will hit the mount?
It was nice just getting it out under the stars for a change! Only so much I can do. On the plus side the encoders are accurate enough to detect me breathing next to it when I was inside, if I reached to the keyboard my body movement would register!
Quote:
Originally Posted by topheart
Hi Colin,
All the best with the new setup!!
Very exciting.
Cheers,
Tim
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Originally Posted by RickS
A promising start, Colin.
Definitely nothing more than a start at this stage but I am enjoying the new challenge.
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Originally Posted by Placidus
You're showing that outer chevron at 5 o'clock in your Helix image. That's difficult to get. Well done!
I have done some heavy noise reduction and stretching and it certainly shows by spewing up more noise I tried calibrating them but I need to redo my Master Bias for some reason.
When it get it running nicely I'll push close to 30 min subs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley
Lovely round stars. Its always a pleasure to see them in the downloads. Its so easy to get eggy stars and it seems like a constant battle to get round stars so congrats!
Greg.
CCDInspector saying aspects of 7ish with 300s subs and a not crash hot polar alignment. Checking that in the morning I was stoked! I did a test 600s and got an aspect of 15 which is closer to the best I'd usually get out of the EQ6. Sometimes I'd get a 9 but that was usually associated with focus drift!
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Originally Posted by strongmanmike
Well...it certainly looks like it works Col
So, were these unguided 5min exposures?
Mike
Completely unguided! I've lost nights worth of data due to guider issues over and over, selling my guider scope soon
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Originally Posted by atalas
Ok, your just plain showing off with your tight little round stars Colin! buuut,I'm very happy It's going so well dude
Everything looks round after a 50% down sample
Quote:
Originally Posted by Somnium
That is a really nice mount Colin. i was just wondering, what happens if you lose power? i assume the direct drive just stops, is there a chance the scope will hit the mount?
When I lose power it stops pretty quick as there is nothing to keep it going. Last night the camera power cable got caught and it stopped pretty quickly when it detected a a massive increase in amps. Unlike my EQ6 if it hits something it stops and doesn't keep driving into the mount all night
Everything is perfectly balanced so without power it just sits there.
The better the mount, the better the data. Looking forward to seeing those elusive faint fuzzies that you will be bringing up in your razor sharp photos
Your NJP performs brilliantly with its 0.25" RMS A month ago up at Heathcote I was throwing out half of my 150s subs due to guide issues. No idea why but about half of my subs were elongated and non usable, can only imagine backlash or something. Other nights it'll do 600" all night without a hitch, even managed a one hour exposure that was reasonable. Not perfect but reasonable
Point being, it'll be nice to use a mount that is consistent!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slawomir
Awesome result Colin.
The better the mount, the better the data. Looking forward to seeing those elusive faint fuzzies that you will be bringing up in your razor sharp photos
Don't know how many faint fuzzies I'll be getting 18km from Melbourne CBD
Looking good Colin! I'm jealous! I wish I could get 5min unguided subs - that's the longest I'm doing with the ASI1600 so I'd be totally unguided then. Ah, one day...
nice one colin, a new toy to play with 
buuut,I'm very happy It's going so well dude
