20:09 – 23:28
I have decided tonight to start to retake the 6 objects from the previous two nights. The Moon definitely had a massive effect and so did the cloud. I want to see what it’s like imaging without the Moon and clear skies. The Moon comes up at 11:16pm so I will image from when it is dark until then.
I have had a few intermittent problems with focusing over the last few nights. I have now realised it is worse when their scope is pointing directly up so the ratchet focuser must be slipping. I have taken it to pieces this evening and then reattached the EAF ZWO electronic focuser and bracket. It now seems to be working fine. Due to this issue I lost the first 90 mins of imaging this evening. It’s now 9:30pm and I’m back up and running, but will need to delete the first 7 or so images from this evening that are out of focus.
I started with M38 the open cluster in Auriga and managed to capture around 1 hours worth of 120s subs.
It’s worth noting that there is a large black circle on the flats, I thought this was due to a smudge on the filter, however I have now cleaned that and it is still there. Therefore it must be on the corrector plate so I will look tomorrow.
Also I had some problems tonight with the guiding suddenly jumping. I put this down to the stretchy USB cable running to the mount getting caught, however on changing how it was connected I still had the issue so I need to further investigate. I will change the cable tomorrow to using WiFi which I have just found out I can do.
I took flats and darks.
By way of an update, it transpired that some of my problem with the guiding jumping was the 4s exposure I was using, reducing this to 0.5s-1.0s resolved the problem in the main. The only time I saw this again was then when the scope was pointing low to the North Western horizon possibly being effected by the street lights.