Modernizing my imaging setup

Yes, I'm finally going to move into the 21st Century by adding software mount control and plate solving! Along the way I'm consolidating all my cabling with both a 12V power hub and powered USB 3 hub.

I've resisted this move until now because it sounds really complicated and my imaging laptop wasn't up to running Astrotortilla. But the long winter gave me plenty of time and I've got a new laptop, too. And I have the motivation of doing something similar for the new imaging setup at the Minnesota Astronomical Society's Cherry Grove Observatory. (More about that in a coming post.)

What's New

• Power: My old wet lead-acid batteries have been replaced by smaller sealed AGM batteries, giving me a total of about 108Ah in the field (assuming an 80% discharge). This should be enough for four summer nights of imaging. The batteries can be connected in parallel.
• Software: BackyardEOS and PHD2 are now joined with StellariumScope, Stellarium, and Astrotortilla. ASCOM for everything, which permits me to do away with the cable from the guide camera to the mount! TeamViewer for remote monitoring and control.
• Cabling: A RIGRunner power hub and separate powered USB3 hub have been added. This means I only need to run one power cable to the mount, and one USB cable. All the cables now join securely using Anderson Powerpole connectors. A small DROK DC step down converter now acts as the power supply for my DSLR. This attaches to the power hub. 
• "Remote Control" via TeamViewer requires a wireless router for those times when the internet is available. I can control everything from my Android tablet.

ASCOM isn't nearly as difficult to implement as I had thought. Install the correct platform and drivers and you're good.

On the other hand, Astrotortilla has been a minor nightmare. The main problem has been the field of view that has to be specified. It really has to bracket* the FOV of your images. I have it solving now nice and fast, and working in conjunction with BYEOS and my mount.

*After running a lot of test cases I'm not so sure this is true. It seems like solving success mainly requires that the long axis of your image is slightly larger than the actual FOV. The short axis can be almost anything greater than zero and smaller than the long axis.

Back from the 2017 Nebraska Star Party

Ah, to be back in the land of 10,000 lakes and high dew points!

NSP 2017 is over, and it was a memorable one. Sunday (7/23) was clear and about as good a night as I've ever enjoyed at NSP--or anywhere, for that matter. The day had been in the low 90s, but the temperature dropped quickly as the sun set. There was a strong and gusty breeze that kept the mosquitoes away. (I realize big scope owners didn't like the wind, but I was imaging with a 200mm lens wildly overmounted on a CGEM.) The transparency was exceptional overhead; the Milky Way was nothing short of spectacular.  I don't think you could read by its light as one person predicted, but it was definitely casting a subtle, diffuse shadow.

I was able to collect some light frames of my current target, the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex, then switch over to the Sadr area for the Butterfly:

The Rho frames have yet to be processed. The next night I decided to spend the entire night imaging the Veil:

What I like about this 200mm lens is how flat it is at f5.6, and free of vignetting.  There are two new things about these images:

1. Instead of stopping down the lens with its internal iris I used a step down ring. This gets rid of the diffraction spikes caused by  the blades of the iris.
2. I used PHD and BackyardEOS to dither the images.  It seemed to work very well!

The last night was cut short by clouds, so I only got five frames of the Rho area at 135mm:

As you can see, this lens has substantial vignetting.

By the way, 2017 NSP was on the hot side.  The Monday and Tuesday highs were 106 and 107 degrees, respectively. But it was the usual "dry heat" and both days had those great strong breezes.  I spent the afternoons sitting and reading semi-comfortably in the shade of the supper area canopy. Thank goodness NSP didn't happen the previous week when it had been both hot and humid.

Now it's on to eclipse planning and back to meteor counting!

The delight of BackyardEOS, A rare night in February

Last Friday night was an exceptional evening in Minnesota.

• The Moon was out of the sky from dusk to almost 1 A.M.
• It was clear
• The dark site observing field was essentially snowless
• It was an incredibly warm evening--by 1 A.M. it had fallen only to around 40F.
• The wind was for the most part very light to calm, so there was no real wind chill factor.

 Best of all my evening was free!

It's difficult to emphasize how rare that evening was. The February 17 average high and low for nearby Cannon Falls is 29 and 10, so it was a good 20 degrees warmer than average. Usually the warmer weather correlates positively with clouds, too.

I originally intended to image the Witch Head nebula because my previous image of it is rather poor; noisy and crossed by an amazing number of geosynchronous satellites. A slow start to the evening made me go with something a little easier--the far brighter M42 area. It turned out better than i expected for 2.1 hours of 5 minute exposures at f/5.6:

I was able to faintly capture some of the dimmer clouds in the outlying areas just to the left of M42. The red patch at the upper right of center edge is an extension of the Horsehead nebula area.

When M42 began to sink I went to comet 45P and got almost an hour and a half of that:

This wasn't deep enough to get even a hint of the fainter, bluer tail. Oh, well...I'll take it!

One of the best things of the night was using BackyardEOS for the first time. It's a joy to use, and despite its power it keeps things easy to use. Next time I'm going to use it to tackle the mystery dithering!

I also got a demonstration of PoleMaster, a hardware/software tandem that makes getting an excellent polar alignment easy, fast, and actually fun (well, compared to drift aligning, anyway). It's definitely on my to-buy list ($300 from OPT). I would really like to take some very long light frames this year in Nebraska, and this would help. Even though PHD2's polar alignment utility is slick and gives good results, I can see how much easier (and probably better) PoleMaster would make getting a good PA.