Saturday, March 16, 2024

20240316 Sun by ASI 462mm

New monochromatic camera arrived, much faster frame rate and slightly cleaner images.

Seeing 6/10, transparency 6/10.

Full disc at 1023 (GMT), reducer still required for full disc:


Insert 2x barlows, oversampling.


10:26 (GMT)


10:27 (GMT)


Quite delicate detail, love the quality of frames produced.


10:30 (GMT), I have confident that it should be a closed loop but the dynamic range is not enough to show the darker part, maybe I shall take another shot with longer exposure to form a HDR image?



Tuesday, January 16, 2024

20240116 ASI 662MC

The new baby arrived, gonna test it despite the poor sky condition, I would say seeing 3/10 with transparency 5/10.

I am adjusting myself on the transparency rating, and if I were still in Hong Kong, I would say it's 6//10 and if I were to compare with the previous clear nights, I would say it's more like 3-4/10, even Orion was not too visible to the naked eyes.

With the strong tripod, the mount was steady enough for the Meade 8" SCT.  Focusing was tricky anyway, the mirror shift worsen the problem further but that was doable with patience.  Patience is cool weather came with a price, especially when you couldn't use the glove.

Anyway, here were the results.  First up were prime focus shots on the moon, given the pixel size of 2.9um, the optimal sampling would be like f/14.5 so f/10 is a bit under sampled.




Next up was the Jupiter, I've to adjust my Rigel Quik Finder in order to point at the Jupiter properly, the flip mirror did help but still requires some effort.  Adding a 2x barlows means oversampling.

First up is a f/10 shot, but with the flip mirror, I expect it works longer than f/10.


The Jovian satellites were smeared by the wind current.  Pushing up with a 2x barlows did not reveal any more detail but worsen actually.




I will try to attach the barlows lens cell to different locations of the optical chain to find an optimal one when weather permits again.


Monday, January 15, 2024

20240114 M45

 


Transparency dropped, cloud rolled in before getting more signal, yet another test shot, no dark no flat.

Sunday, January 14, 2024

20240113 M31

First light of my Canon FD 300 f2.8L, unguided, stacked of 18 frames of 3 minutes exposure, no dark no flat, straight out of the ASI air.


A very light touch of post-processing.


Saturday, December 30, 2023

20231229 M31

Spent half an hour polar aligning with ASIAir.

And then took some images with my Canon 200mm f2.8 wide open, stacked some 30s, 120s and 160s shots automatically by the ASIAir, no dark no bias, unguided.  Some of the shots were damaged by dew.

Just a test shot.

Friday, December 22, 2023

20231221 Moon, second test on the new tripod using the 85mm ED

I forgot that I have tested the 8" SCT amd I pulled out my 85ED to test.

I would say it's rock solid, focusing is easy.

But the cleaning job of the 120mc was not very successful, patches of dust could be seen everywhere.  This aging camera is only USB 2.0, leaving a lot to be desired.


I shall play some DSLR deep sky wide field shots, leave planet and lunar imaging aside first, since I felt myself bitten by the equipment bug again, it's not healthy.

Time to give a pause.

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

20231218 Moon with a new tripod

I have got a much bigger tripod since the old one is too light and thin, it even falls down twice!

Got a clear sky briefly tonight after much rain, but it's still windy, so it's a test of the stability of the setup rather than an imaging session.

I have slewed the Meade 8" SCT around, and the setup remained stable, no sign of tipping over.  I won't say it's rock solid, but it's definitely a stable setup.  Good enough for manual focusing, but of course, the resuilt tonight is not good enough, most likely due to the wind.



Take at prime focus, I didn't pull out any barlows for it does not make sense under such wind!