Excellent night

I had an excellent night of observing. Even though the sky was bright except for about 20 minutes around 1:00 am when I was treated to a spectacular naked eye view of the Milky way. Unfortunately, imaging was extremely poor due to rushing before the sky became too bright.
At around 1:30 am I found M51, but the imager wouldn't locate it. At 2:30 am, I found M31 and tried some imaging, either the sky was to bright by now, or my imaging was grossly underexposed, or both, anyway, I shall link to the image for feedback below. I then found the dumbell and the ring, but they were just too faint for imaging and focusing on, but visually they were superb, especially the Ring. At around 3:35 am and 3:37 respectavely I found and saw for the first time Uranus and Neptune. My next first was Mars, I did take an image, but it was very difficult as we were now moving into nearly daylight, the image is very poor, but I have linked anyway as it shows a prominent phase. I hadn't realised that Mars showed phases, but had I paid attention to what I read in the Sky At Night Mag I would have!
Anyway, for me, it was a superb first nights viewing for over a month with quite a lot of firsts for me.

www.irishastronomy.org/user_resources/fi...121082616-Mars-1.jpg
Mars image 59 exposures of 12th second with darks. Quite a poor picture.

www.irishastronomy.org/user_resources/fi...1121082594-M31-2.jpg
M31 22 exposures at 20 seconds with darks.
both imaged with DSI-C and in mono.

Bill H.

Bill - can you give us a detailed run down of the OTA/reducer etc etc?

Cheers

Dave

Hi Dave,
LX90 (8") f10, I realise that M31 really needs a reducer, but I don't have one yet, just wanted to catch what I could. DSI straight onto tthe LX90 and it was operated by that new piece of equipement on the market, the complete idiot
:lol:
Bill.

Ah yes... Were you hoping to get an image like this?

www.robgendlerastropics.com/M31Page.html

I'm afraid at your resolution, all you'll get is the core. I just shot off an image and even with a 6.3 reduer, all I get is the core too....

Most images are mozaics. I forget how much area of the sky Andromeda covers but its large. So mozaics are the key, or a small apeture scope...

The mars image looks promising though. Looks like your tracking is very good. Have a lash as neptue or uranus and see how you get on. Try 20 or 30 sec exposures. I'm giving Pluto a shot right now. Gotta find that teapot

Cheers

Dave

Ah yes... Were you hoping to get an image like this?

www.robgendlerastropics.com/M31Page.html

Dave

no way :shock: I was expecting better :lol: :lol: :lol:
Honestly though, I didn't expect the full image, but did expect a wee bit more detail. Probably still expecting too much.
Thanks for the feedback.
Bill.

Hi Bill - I shot about 5 30 second frames of the core and to be honest, any detail is wiped out by the brightness of the core.

If you want a good target to hone your skills on, try the blackeye (easier)or the sobrero (harder). The blackeye shows some really nice details for as many 30 second exposures as you can get your hands on. And it'll fit quite nicely in the DSI frame at your current setup.

I spent ages imaging it and each time, I got better and better - learned a lot.

Also, so far I've steered clear of nebulae - they seem to be harder to image, or at least image well.

I just bagged Pluto and Neptune/Triton. I going to look up Uranus now. Hopefully I'll find as many moons as I can.

Cheers

Dave McD


Dave McD