Equipment

Astrophotography Misadventures: A January Update

January brought with it not one, but two astronomical tragedies. The first was a promising dark site expedition that ended before it began—I arrived at the remote location only to discover I’d left behind all my essential cables. A perfect night sky wasted.

Just when I thought my luck might turn around, disaster struck again. After setting up my equipment at home to capture the ethereal Jellyfish Nebula, I awoke the next morning to find my ZWO FF65 lens had suffered a direct hit from an aerial bombardment of the avian variety. Initially mistaking it for condensation from approaching rain clouds, I hurriedly packed up my gear to protect it from what I thought would be morning showers.

October Imaging Update

This month has brought clear skies to Texas and lots of imaging time. I’ve managed to capture a few targets including: North America Nebula, Clam Nebula, Tulip Nebula, and Orion’s Nebula.

These image sessions were all driven by NINA, and have revolutionized imaging sessions for me. There is no longer a need to sit and watch the telescope while it images, I have managed to automate the process and capture 2-3 targets in a night. I’m quite pleased with the transition from Stellarmate, however I do miss the ease of using an app to control everything.

August 7 2024 Astro session

I did note that I would try to analyze subframes in the last post, but I thought it was worth a shot to take some pictures. The target was NGC 6974, one of two luminous knots within the Veil Nebula. It was particularly tricky because of the scattered clouds in the evening. It started fine, with the polar alignment taking almost no time at all. Focusing with SVBony’s SV220 Ha+OIII filter was not challenging at all. Once I slewed to the target things got worse. There were scattered clouds hindering the guiding, so I waiting a bit until they passed. Once they had passed, I continued the guiding assistant in PHD2 and then realigned on NGC 6974 to start guiding. I had to interrupt the session while clouds came in, then started it again when they passed.

August 5 2024 Astro session

Tonight’s session started around 9:30pm US Central time, under Bortle 9 skies. Polar alignment and focusing took a little extra time due to clouds and poor visibility. However, once completed the night cleared up a bit and alignment to my target went better. I ran the guiding calibration, although it was not in a recommended location for calibrating, then I ran the guiding assistant tool and applied the recommendations. My equipment was able to guide between 18 and 22 rms. After that, the imaging session began. I was able to capture 20 subframes before I was ready to pack up.