FSQ106 First Light Image; Astronomical League Open Cluster Observing Program: A To-Do list for Astro Photography Tools (APT)

At last! My FSQ system was complete and I could take it out for a first light image. Nothing fancy, just a lot of stars. I also made it a point to process it only with PixInsight, replacing ImagesPlus for calibration and reducing my dependence on Photoshop. The image is here at AstroBin. Below is a preview, along with a 1:1 scale of M13 itself. Click each for larger views.

 

 

The image is based on a bit under three hours of LRGB. There's a lot of room for improvement in this image, I know, but it's wildly better than my previous efforts.

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I think one of my first long-term projects for the FSQ is going to be the AL Open Cluster Program list. The AL provides a PDF document listing the 125 objects in the program along with their coordinates which is helpful because quite a few of the clusters are from obscure catalogs like Berkeley, Trumpler, and Dolidze Dzimselejsvili.

I'm using Stellarium and APT to control the G-11 mount. Wouldn't it be nice if there was an observing list of the AL open clusters for one of those so that I could do simple a simple go-to for each object? Unfortunately Stellarium doesn't seem to support user-defined object lists but APT does. 

Some poking around failed to turn up a list. In APT it's fairly easy to create lists by loading objects into the ToDo list. Start by opening the Object Browser. If a cluster is in the Deep Sky list, find and select it, then click the "Add in ToDo" button. If an object isn't in the list, use the ToDo list's Add New button. When you're done creating a list, just export it. The data is put into an easy-to-read XML file.

This is just what I did! If you use APT and want a copy of the list, click this link:

https://app.box.com/s/l3ji97b1ysm3xxvpve2mgud34nv4x34c

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And now a footnote to my last post in which I was saying goodbye to the Nebraska Star Party for a while. I should mention the same applies to the Iowa Star Party. The last two times I've attended that the heat and humidity were incredible. Those were on the Labor Day weekends, and this year it's a week earlier--meaning the probability of excessive heat is even greater. Much as I hate to give up on ISP, I probably won't go back until they move it into late September or October. 

Yes, I know, I won't be missed by either event, and yes, I'm a weather wimp 😄