One of the local club members put his C9.25 up for sale a while ago. I've always wanted a C9.25 because of its reputation and how it fit my "long-term imaging plan." It's got a nice aperture and versatility, being either a nice long f/10 or a reasonably fast f/6.3. I would just have bought it but for the fact that it would make my MK-67 redundant.
The solution was to sell the MK-67 and use the funds to help buy the C9.25. Two nights ago I did the former, and last night the latter. Tonight I've got it out on my CGEM to see If I can do an imaging dry run at f/10. The target will be good old M 27 in H alpha.
I wonder how often sales act like dominos. The selling of my MK67 triggers the C9.25 sale, which has its seller looking to buy a used Fastar system for his C11. It's too far downstream to ever know if the Fastar seller will turn around and buy something else, but I wouldn't be surprised if that happened.
First visual check: Alignment looks perfect. Views are beautiful! Saturn sharp and contrasty (if that's a word); moons like pinpoints. Spica dazzles with no false color. Next up, getting the CCD started up as soon as it's dark.
Showing posts with label MK67. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MK67. Show all posts
Monday, June 25, 2012
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Serendipity and a cranky cable
Tonight I thought I'd go back to the Horsehead and redo the H alpha exposures. But when I asked the GoTo to take me there, it instead put me right on the Flame Nebula. I decided to go with the what the mount apparently preferred.
I'm current imaging with my MK-67, an f/12 Mak-Cass. Its focal length is 1800 mm. The ST-8300M's pixel size of 5.4 microns is about 1/3 the size it should be (about 16 microns for the average poor seeing I get here). I'm therefore binning 3x3 on the camera, which give me about 1.65 arcseconds per pixel. Looking at some of the subs, this seems to work very well.
As I write this I've got 22 subs in for the Flame. Tomorrow night I'll go back (unless the mount has other plans) and shoot some other bands if it holds clear.The odd lines I mentioned last time are gone. I asked on the MAS forum about the noise I was getting the other night. It looks like the best suggestions were about bad or loose cables. Something was acting up tonight when PHD went crazy. The oddest thing was that each exposure caused the PHD window to jump back and forth by about the window frame's width (8 pixels or so). It also couldn't calibrate correctly. Multiple restarts didn't fix this, nor did unplugging the USB cable at the laptop. However unplugging and reseating the cable at the autoguider did the trick. I begin to suspect that the autoguider's socket is the problem.
The Horsehead image came out okay, but needed more exposures. I think the flame will look much better. I aim to get 30x5min exposures for it.I'll post the Ha images in the next couple of days.
I'm current imaging with my MK-67, an f/12 Mak-Cass. Its focal length is 1800 mm. The ST-8300M's pixel size of 5.4 microns is about 1/3 the size it should be (about 16 microns for the average poor seeing I get here). I'm therefore binning 3x3 on the camera, which give me about 1.65 arcseconds per pixel. Looking at some of the subs, this seems to work very well.
As I write this I've got 22 subs in for the Flame. Tomorrow night I'll go back (unless the mount has other plans) and shoot some other bands if it holds clear.The odd lines I mentioned last time are gone. I asked on the MAS forum about the noise I was getting the other night. It looks like the best suggestions were about bad or loose cables. Something was acting up tonight when PHD went crazy. The oddest thing was that each exposure caused the PHD window to jump back and forth by about the window frame's width (8 pixels or so). It also couldn't calibrate correctly. Multiple restarts didn't fix this, nor did unplugging the USB cable at the laptop. However unplugging and reseating the cable at the autoguider did the trick. I begin to suspect that the autoguider's socket is the problem.
The Horsehead image came out okay, but needed more exposures. I think the flame will look much better. I aim to get 30x5min exposures for it.I'll post the Ha images in the next couple of days.
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