20261018 Western and Eastern Veil by Canon 200mm + 552mc pro and the Propella Nebula by S30

Started at around 19:40, the Canon 200mm setup is guided with a 230mm guidescope.  Yes, the guider is longer focal length than the main scope.

Take a few initial shots with 120s exposures, total four of them.

Then, I pushed the exposure to 300s.  There are some guiding errors after like 8 shots for unknown reasons, and 4 of them are ruined by random satellites in the sky.

Dropping back to 160s exposures, 42 in total.  Result pending processing.

And then the Propella Nebula by the S30, this target is not in the database of the S30 but it's not difficult to locate it.  Just around (NW of) Sadr of Cygnus.  Total 2 hours 26 minutes:

Surprisingly good.

20261017 A night of debugging, trying out Canon FD 300mm new adapter, Omicron Cygni and the Ghosts of Cassiopeia IC59 and IC63

I setup my FD Canon 300mm f2.8 before darkness came, roughly focused with a remote tree.

Did a quick polar alignment after dinner and started imaging from around 7:30pm.  The polar alignment is still quite good, only a very minor tweak.

I swinged the Canon to Omicron Cygni for 60s guided exposure, will keep on for maybe like an hour?  Just to see how it works out.  

Maybe it's the first real imaging session after 3D printing the new adapter with carbon fibre filament.  

After around 10 exposures for 60s each, stacking failed and I found that the mount somehow drifted away.  I then fixed it and jump to 120s exposure each.  

So far it's alright and I will go for bathing after six exposures, and then let it go on.

I have accumulated more than an hour of data, but the result was not that good.  Some processing required.

I then moved to Eastern Veil Nebula (C33), pushing gain to high and turn on cooling.  But for some unknown reason, it always fails to stack.  The sky is clear, and the image is not bad, maybe field rotated or?  (also field rotated, EQ tracking should not rotate but the new adapter did rotate) Need to see why later.  (Found out why, it's all overexposed, the frames are all white)

Try again with M33, just a test.  120s exposure, medium gain, -10 degree cooling.  Not really useful results due to the above bugs.

Call it a night of debugging.

And then the S30 is out as well, pointing at the Ghosts of Cassiopeia as planned, will spend the rest of the night with it.  Over 2.5 hours of exposure:

20261016 Omicron Cygni Region

This one is even more elusive, probably pushing the limit of the S30.

I will spend the whole observation session on it, in the hope to bring out those thin and delicate structures of the nebulous area.

Two hours of exposure, processed only by the S30:

Not bad for this very dim target.  The upper right and the lower right corners are suffering from noise due to field rotation, so these areas were not overlapped enough among all frames.

20261013 West of Gamma Cygni (Sadr) Region

I will dedicate the whole session to this area, a very large diffused nebula.

Total 2.5 hours of exposure.

Lovely.

20261011 Not so clear night M52 with NGC 7635 and NGC 7538

The forecast was good but the sky didn't really clear up until 9:00pm.  Not really cleared at all, but it worths to pull out the S30.

So I am re-doing M52, framing NGC 7635 as well NGC 7538 too.

Started at 9:05pm, and I hope I can get more than an hour of exposure.

81 minutes finally:

20261007 The Double Cluster NGC 869 + NGC 884 and Comet 161P

The sky was not so good, but acceptable.

Hope to get around an hour of exposure on the Double Clusters.

And then 161P which is rather low in the sky, just a few degrees above the nearby trees.  I will try to capture as long as I could.  I don't know whether if it's feasible with the small S30 but why not give it a trial?

On capturing it, I found that it reaches it's highest point during this time of the day!  It's slightly off the location indicated by the S30 but then it's still within the field of view, I'm surprised to be able to capture another comet with it.

My first comet hunting was so difficult.

Finally, swinged to Almach for twenty minutes, unable to split this tight double with just 30mm aperture.

20261006 IC 5146 Cocoon Nebula (again ) and also Coat Hanger

The sky was no good for the whole day, but it's clearing up so why not give it a run?

Let's try again and hopefully got more photons this time:

Stacking failed after around 1.5 hours. 

So I switched to the coat hanger for a small mosaic, this one is interesting visually and the S30 could capture it via stitching:

Lovely, 46 minutes of total exposure.

20261002 IC 5146 Cocoon Nebula

It has been raining crazily. 

The floor is still wet but the sky clear up suddenly.

Setting up the S30 is no brainer, the best part of this little piece of equipment.

It's 20:56 now, and exposure should begin before 21:00, I still have 1.5 hour of exposure hopefully.

After around 30 minutes of exposure, it rains.  I didn't realise until stacking failure was reported.  I pulled the S30 inside and use a fan to dry it, hopefully it's not soaked yet.

I should try this target again later.

20261001 IC1318 with NGC 6910

Will be spending the whole session on it, hopefully get more than an hour of exposure.

Finally more than two hours, 2:14 to be exact:

Quite many nebulosity.  I'm going to do more of these, I mean to work on a single target per session.

I shall also bring out my 6D with my 200mm lens to take even wider field of view.  Time to explore the potential of non-cooled imaging.

20260930 The Elephant's Trunk Nebula (IC 1396A) by S30

I am doing mosaic with 2x to maximise the field of view, started at around 9:00pm.

Transparency maybe 5-6/10.

See how long exposure I could get.

Total for 46 minutes, failed to finish the whole mosaic, the nebula is not very visible:

20260923 Messier Hunting Pause, Capturing Best targets of the night

No more new target could be acquired tonight.

C27 will be my first target, the Crescent Nebula:

40 minutes of exposure.

I also setup my 85mm refractor looking at the moon and also scan around with my daughter Almy.

20260915 Messier Marathon goes on... trying marginally low targets

Despite AI found it couldn't be completed here in Scotland, I will continue anyway.

M5 is higher in the sky since I started earlier (before 9:00pm) today.

Blocked.

M8 also blocked.

M9 also blocked.

M72 partially blocked.

M73 seems alright, only slightly blocked, still failed.

--

Going back to M72 worked (9:26pm), for 11 minutes:

Going back to M73 (optical asterism of four main stars) for 5 minutes:

--

No more suitable target, so switching to C11 the Bubble Nebula with M52 at a corner, for 15 minutes:-

Re-visited M14 for a better image, for xx minutes:-

20260909 Messier Marathon continues... M52

No targets found in the "best for the night" list.

So, I try to check one by one, M52 is the first target, at higher than 60 degrees up.

Next is M10:

And then M12 which is rather close by:

M14 which is a bit higher in the sky (just 30s exposure due to cloud)

Last target, non Messier, IC 5070... just to find a target higher in the sky to get rid of the cloud, failed due to cloud... only got 2 minutes of exposure which show nothing.

Three more!  Not bad indeed.

--

Next time:

M72-73 around 20 degrees

M5  around 10 degrees 

M107, M8, M9 are less than 10 degrees

Messier Marathron Continue M29 and ...

It's pretty clear tonight after the brass band of my daughter.  She's enjoying the views with binoculars and I am doing this.

First up is M29:

And then M27:

And then M71:

Pretty surprise to be able to capture M11 which is rather low in the sky, a very fine open cluster, the wild duck:

M2 is another pleasant surprise too, time to sleep after this one, a compact globular cluster:

2026/8/13 Resuming Messier Marathon M57 (also M56)

Playing Mahjong with family until ten o'clock and the sky already got dark.

There is no reason not to take out the S30.  Just use the time for brushing teeth might be good enough for a target or two.

Doing M57 as it was one of those best targets in the database for the day, 15 minutes of total exposure, no AI denoise:

And then M56 for ten minutes:

Two more!

20260428 Testing of FD 300mm f2.8, S30 at Leo Triplet

The setup got a lunar video early before sunset:

Started rather late at around 22:40.

The Canon FD 300mm f2.8 is pointing at M109 unguided at 60s exposure.  

This is a test on the latest adapter, hopefully solving most of the previous issues.  

Stars look quite nice.  Effective focal length was calculated to be 293mm (it was around 270mm formerly).  Another good indicator.  The adapter could be further enhance to ensure better squaring, and slightly shorter to provide full focus travel to the NGF-CM.

For some reason I switched to M51 later, again with 60s exposure.

Unprocessed stacked raw.

The S30 is pointing at the Leo triplet (M65, M66 and NGC 3628).

Will keep these for the rest of this session.

20260425 S30 + 300mm guided

Setup everthing before 10:00pm, I got around 30 minutes before sleeping.

I am still using the old PLA adapter, with minor adjustment.  The new PETG-CF was a failure during printing, some of the supports collapsed...

Aimming the Canon 300mm to M101, taking 180s exposures.  

Seems some major issue with that adapter.

Aimming the S30 to NGC 4631, taking 30s exposures, for 40 minutes.

Nice target.

20260423 Night Session: M51 and Lyrid meteor shower

Did once in the afternoon, now this is the night session, started at around 22:10pm.

S30 aimming at M51 tonight.

Setup my Insta360 One R with starlapse, 5s each frame for Lyrid meteor shower.

It begans to fog up very quickly, hope it will clear up soon.

It didn't clear up at all until even the next morning.  The above was stacked with 30 minutes.

20260422 M95, M96, M105, NGC 3384 and NGC 3389 mosaic

There is no unrecord objects during this time window, so I go back to normal imaging.  

I will fix my S30 in this area tonight, slightly more than 50 minutes of exposure.

Setup my Canon 6D with a 50mm f1.8 lens stopped down to f2.2 pointing at the Makarian chain, 180s exposures at ISO 3200.

Not a good one, just skip it.  Maybe the ASIAir is not controlling the Canon 6D good enough?  I don't know.

The dovetail slips, problem found.

20260418 Another Clear Night, marathon and also Gemini assisted collimation!

Come back from a gathering and it's not yet dark.  Good thing and bad thing, good is that I miss nothing, bad is that dark skies are getting shorter and shorter.

Let me do M103 first, this is an open cluster, should be easier with not-yet-dark-sky.  

It's kind of blocked by nearby stuff, so I relocated my tripod a bit to see if that could be done.  A bit marginal right now, see if I can capture it tonight or else it would mean next season!

Part of the field of view is blocked, got it badly.

And then M59 and M60 within the same frame:

Relocated the tripod to capture M49, not bad:

and then M61, the last target of the night:

I should be collimating my Meade 8" SCT but it's Sunday tomorrow so I better sleep earlier.  Let me set a deadline of 10:30pm.

Finally I did it with my manual SVBony mount, very nice.  I did AI assisted collimation by using Gemini to analyse the out of focus image and diffraction pattern.  The view is confirmed to be great on Jupiter.

There was some pinched optics formerly and it should now be fixed.