Early Messier 23

Stars in this early image are poorly focused. I never really got the knack of the graphical focusing aids eventually resorting to eyeball focusing on an enlarged realtime bright star dimmed by super short exposure times. This image was taken at ambient temperature with an ambient temperature dark frame because I lacked to cooling power cable at the time. 

DSI is mothballed in favor of ZWO ASI174MC COOL

The Meade DSI-C has been mothballed. In July after much research I procured a ZWO ASI174MC-COOL which was on summer sale at Moving High Point Scientific  Moving from the DSI has significant learning curve with a big payoff.

I use SharpCap 2.9 for camera control and acquition. The learning curve can be steep with its many controls and parameters. Fortunately it's well documented. I typically acquire SER video files in 1936x1216 or 968x608 pixel formats. Temperature controlled cooling boosts productivity as one can acquire essential dark frames before a night imaging session. . The Meade DSI-C with no temp control and  plagued by hot pixels required frequent acquistion of dark frames as the ambient overnight temperature changed. Hot pixels have not been a problem with the new camera that I have typically run at 10C and 15s exposure.

ASI174MC is not perfect. Its large pixels 5.86 microns make it a less than ideal solar system camera compared to its smaller pixel cousins or my slower acquiring Celestron NexImager5. Also, there is significant amp glow in the lower right corner, thus dark frames are essential for long exposures.

Over the next few days I will be posting images acquired with the new camera since its June procurement.

Open Clusters: M37, M44, M67

These images were acquired 3/29/2016. Scope used was Celestron Travelscope 70x400mm mounted piggy back on Celestron 8 SCT / AVX mount. Optical train included Antares 0.5x Focal reducer. Alignment: 2 Alignment Stars+4 alignment stars+ All star polar alignment. Exposures: 8-15s with sidereal tracking only. Post processing: Fits liberator with ArcSinh(x) tranform of histograms. Layers colorized and combined with PSP9.

Messier 37

Messier 44

Messier 67

Three galaxies M51, M94, M109 and a globular M3

M51 and M3  are  old  favorites. M94 and M109 were  new targets for the night (3/11/16). Scope  used  was  Celestron 8 mounted on AVX mount. Optical train included Celestron 0.66x field flattening focal reducer stacked with Antares 0.5x focal reducer. Two star alignment with 4 calibration stars and Celestron "All Star Polar Alignment" was use to align with true celestial north. Images were acquired with 25 15-30s  exposure frames in FITS format. Post processing was with Fitsliberator using the ArcSinh(x) transform to TIFF format. Red, green and blue layers were colorized and recombined using Paintshop Pro 9.

Messier 94

Messier 51

Messier 109

Messier 3

The trip to Harvard, MA was a bust

One thing you can be sure of is the more things you need for a sky gazing trip out the more chances things can go wrong. More than once I have trekked 45 miles out to Harvard, MA only to have forgotten a key item or have something fail. Once last year it was the AVX mount. Once, with my previous scope, a Meade 127ED, it was ... arrgghh... the 2" to 1.25" adapter. 

The most recent night, 2/6/2016, it was the DC to AC converter I use to power the laptop off of the car battery. It suddenly stopped working. Lacking a spare fuse or a way to test the fuse continuity I cut my night short trying to image on my aging Acer battery. It barely delivered 90 minutes. The one image acquired was not worth keeping.

Now here's the kicker. When I got home a test of the fuse showed it was fine. I plugged the DC/AC converter into the jump starter 12v port and it worked. Huh? I the tried it in the car and after a couple of plugs and unplugs, well it worked. Well at least the 90 mile drive was on $1.49 gas instead of $3.49 gas from a few years ago.

Okay, I blinked first on the Celestron Travel Scope 70

I ordered a Celestron Travel Scope 70 (TS70) from B&H Photo As a bonus they include a free red LED flash light that they value at $12.95*. I also ordered a Celestron Universal Piggyback Mount  from the same vendor.

Mounting the TS70 on the Celestron 8/SCT is simple with the supplied screws and matching pre-drilled holes. The AVX counterweight is not sufficient to counterbalance the SCT, the TS70 and the 9x50RACI finder. Thus in the field I will align the system first with help of the finder.,park the system pointing at Polaris then install the TS70 and remove the 9x50 RACI finder.

I've only had one clear night since procuring the TS70; the day I received it. It was windy and seeing was lousy. Thus, I set up the C8/SCT on the patio with the TS70 riding piggy back. From my south facing patio I cannot see Polaris, so rough aligned with North and used Rigel and Procyon as alignment stars. Below is an image of M42 (Orion Nebula) averaged from 25 8sec exposures.

 

The image is reduced 50% from the original size. The brightest stars are quite bloated which I hope means the can be improved in sharpness with better focusing and IR filtering. This will prove interesting considering the crudeness of this scope's rack and pinion focuser.

Since this first night trial I checked the and improved  TS70's collimation with a Cheshire eyepiece using the shaking method suggested by a  10 Minute Astronomy blog post. Tonight  I'll head out to Harvard MA  to put it through its paces.  This post was originally composed on 3/6/16.

*It turns out, despite containing a 9V battery, the battery appears to be non-standard. Thus, the battery could not be replaced rendering the red flash light useless. 

Shopping for small refractor

I haven't posted in a while. I've been in Massachusetts for about two months and the weather has been unstable. When mild it's been gray. When clear it's been frigid or the moon has been out.

Meanwhile I'm in the market for a cheap short focus refractor to ride piggyback on the C8 to take wide field deep sky images. Short focus refractors come in a variety of sizes and and prices but I was looking to go cheap skate without too much compromise.

As luck would have it, while watching a YouTube review of the Celestron Nexguide  auto-guider the reviewer mentioned his satisfaction with using a piggyback mounted 70x400 mm Celestron Travelscope as a guide scope. At less than $100 I figured the scope was worth investigating.  Celestron also offers a piggyback mount that mates to several of its scope models.

One  Travel Scope Amazon review included some pretty decent astroimages taken through the scope by the reviewer. Suddenly I was seeing this scope as a credible candidate for a wide field imager. I probably should have bought the scope right after Black Friday when it was as low as $65 from at least one online vendor. Demand for the scope as a Christmas gift caused the price to soar to $90 - $100  going into Christmas until settling to a low of $75 today. I've been holding out hoping a vendor will blink to a lower price but will get one by  Spring.