IMT – IMT3b Observatory

Viewing Report 17th March 2025 Tenerife

21:30 – 03:24

I started off with M46 open cluster tonight which has a planetary nebula, NGC 2438 within it. The waning Moon rose at 22:17, 88% illuminated and then started to affect my viewing, however I persisted.

Next I slewed to NGC 2403, a lovely spiral galaxy in Camelopardalis and let that run for 2 hours whilst I slept.

I also set the scope to then automatically slew to M66 and the Trio in Leo. However I woke around 3am and noticed that the sky was very bright with the Moon and there was some cloud around. I turned off the scope and went back to bed. None of the data for NGC 2403 and M66 was usable.

I did take 300s darks for the previous night at -15℃ and some Flats.

Viewing Report 18th March 2025 Tenerife

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.

Viewing Report 19th March 2025 Tenerife

21:15 – 23:10

Again tonight I attempted M38 as last night I had quite a few issues. however due to more cloud I did not get a single image and had to pack up.

Viewing Report 20th March 2025 Tenerife

20:18 – 01:20

Following on from last nights cloudy weather, I have setup again tonight, and it is looking clear. I am imaging M38 again, I will use 120s subs and take the appropriate Flats at the shorter exposure as with the Triband filter it suggested 750ms on Auto however these are far to bright so I will reduce back to 500ms.

After 3 hours I had not only gathered much better data for M38, but also the clouds once again on this mountain had formed. I waited until 1:20am and then packed up as it was not clearing.

Viewing Report 16th March 2025 Tenerife

20:34 – 06:30

Setup in the light polluted Adeje town north of the TF1. We are staying in a 3 story townhouse and I am imaging from the 2nd floor terrace.

I have brought with me for the first time the ZWO ASI2600MC AIR and I am imaging with that using the small 220 built in guide chip for guiding and imaging through the Esprit 100 whilst trying to cut down the light pollution using the Antlia Triband RGB filter.

Focusing on completing my Messier collection, given the full moon, I am imaging M38 an open cluster. Taking 60s exposures to try and keep the chance of over exposing the stars, I am also West of the Meridian and at a starting imaging altitude of 55 degrees thus limiting the ingress of light into the telescope.

After 2 hours I moved on to M48 another open cluster. Again it was reasonably high at 42 degrees to allow for 2 hours of imaging before I hit the lights of the buildings. Imaging overhead is clearly what is needed after looking at the last few images of M38.

Another 2 hours completed and I then had a hard choice of what to image past the meridian, away from the Moon but before the lights of the buildings. I landed up targeting M109 to the left, along with NGC 3953 to the right of centre and NGC 391 to the far right. One of the stars making up the constellation of Ursa Major, 64 Gamma Uma can be seen. I went back to sleep and woke up around 7am to shut down the imaging run. A good first night.

Viewing Report 3rd December 2024 Teide

After 2 nights of cloud tonight, night 4, it is lovely and clear. I am suffering from a cold, however I have setup and been imaging since 7:45pm. I have started with the 100 Esprit and placed the new Askar C1 (Ha +OIII) filter in place. I slewed to the California nebula and rotated the camera to fit the object diagonally across the chip as it is larger than my field of view. I plan on taking 2 hours with the C1 filter before I switch to the C2 (SII + OII) filter

Above is a single exposure of 300s

I managed to complete the imaging run then I tried to process but not with much luck. Fortunately I have a good set of friends who can process narrowband images and here is what they did!

This image above from Tim Powell

This image above from Dave Boddington

This image above also from Dave Boddington

This image above from Nigel Davison

This image above also from Nigel Davison

They are all great and I am so happy with what my friends have done with my data

🙂

Viewing Report 2nd January 2025

16:09 – 02:15

Planets tonight with the Mak180.

I then went on and imaged beautiful Venus as a half crescent.

Next up was Saturn and the faint and vaguely tilted rings.

Then I moved onto Jupiter capturing the great red spot GRS in the process.

Last on my list and slightly low at this time of night was Mars.

I could see Syrtis Major even through the turbulent air.

A good night even at this point. I then packed away the travel setup and the Mak180 and opened the dome. However, due to problems with the ASI1600MM camera cooler I did not really get anything done. I also had power problems with he noise creating in which last time I saw this was the PSU itself. I will investigate tomorrow and replace the PSU as needed. The ASI1600MM is beyond repair from a coping perspective. I’m not going to pay to have it fixed, instead I have decided to keep it as a guider with the APS-C chip which is much better than the tiny chips that come with the ZWO planetary cameras. It will work perfectly on the new ONAG On Axis Guider I have just purchased to replace my friends one he lent me.

Viewing Report 30th November 2024 Teide

1:30am – 3:30am

We arrived at the villa at 9pm.

By the time I had eaten and unpacked and built the telescopes on the mount it was 11:30pm, it then took another 30mins to decide where image from as Polaris was round the front of the property so not visible from the patio. it the. took me another 1.5 hours to sort out and calibrate the scopes and setup an image run on IC434. I had a problem with the focal length of the SharpStar 61 which turned out to be 275mm and then plate solving worked. I finally at 1:30am set about imaging and 30mins later Orion crossed the meridian. It then started imaging again.

The temperature tonight was around 6℃. I went to sleep at 3:30am and left it running but it lost connection to the mount and did not send guiding information to it so all my images from that point were no good. I will try again tonight on the same object.

Viewing Report 13th September 2024 Tenerife Adeje

21:00 – 23:00

My second night at the villa with the family. I’ve taken my Sharpstar 61 refractor with me this time with an effective focal length of 272mm. I normally use this a my guider for the Esprit 100 or 120. And I’ve placed it on the AM5 and have attached the trusty 50mm Skywatcher guide scope to it.

Ready to image

Luke has helped me setup this evening after managing to have an accident yesterday which caused me to have butterfly stitches to my shin 🤦‍♂️

So after about an hour of setting up, finding focus, working out the focal length and polar aligning we have set off to test the first image from this little setup. The FoV is 4.94 x 3.30 degrees.

Plate solve of the first image

NGC 7000 the North American Nebula that is almost overhead, thus removing problems with the pool lights that I have not yet worked out how to turn off.

We are taking 12 x 5mins with the ZWO ASI2600MC colour camera, cooled to -10℃ as the temperature outside is a balmy 21℃.

Single 5min exposure

Once done I will call it a night as I really need to turn off those pool lights.

Screenshot of 5min exposure

Darks – 6 x 300s

Flats – 12 x 0.35s

Single Flat

Viewing Report 24th August 2024

22:45 – 01:55

Back on NGC 7380 The Wizard nebula, also known as SH2-142.

I imported a previous image again and closed looped slewed to that and then adjusted my rotator to 272 degrees. Then I set the filter to Ha for focusing and then to SII for imaging. I took 8 x 10min subs, then Flats and Dark Flats and then off to bed as I was very tired.

Wizard 600s in SII

Viewing Report 11th August 2024

22:37 – 04:00

Back on NGC 7380

Focus at 15,107

Having a nightmare trying to find the exact object centre, even after putting in the RA and Dec of the previous image it seems to land up off centre.

I then found I could open the previous image using Open under Image Link after taking an image and then right mouse click on the image and select closed loop slew.

Ok so the above is massively useful. However, without another piece of software I can’t do a meridian flip, so I have decided I need to try and get the ASIAIR working on top of the scope. I will now set out to get that done.

I left the scope running and went to bed around midnight. The last image was around 3am when it hit the meridian and stopped.

Flats – Yes

Darks – Yes

Viewing Report 9th August 2024

22:04 – 04:00

Trying again on NGC 7380 the Wizard in OIII again tonight. Focus position is 16,602 on OIII.

Landed up on Gaia DR3 star to centre the scope and match that of Ha, The PA is below for the rotator, however the rotator was slipping and could not rotate properly. I have tightened up the rotator but it still needs adjusting. I noted that ticking the checkbox for reversing the direction screws up the position. I finally got it in the right angle to image. However, the first handful of images are in the wrong position, so synced on NGC 7380 rather than the star Gaia DR3.

This is where I should be

OBJCTRA – ’22 48 05.544′

OBJCTDEC ‘+58 04 19.89’

I will redo on the next night. I set the scope running and went to bed around 1am

Viewing Report 28th July 2024

21:56 – 04:00

Focus position on 22,644 on OIII. I am taking some more Wizard nebula (NGC 7380 or SH 2-142) images tonight to go along with the Ha and SII images I already have.

I left the setup running all night. Unfortunately I lost the guide star 50 mins into the run and all the rest of the images were garbage. I will redo the next night out.

Viewing report Travel to Tenerife Night 7 – Wednesday 10th July 2024

10pm – 6:30am

Focus position main scope 12,323

Catch up images from last night include

NGC 6188 Dragons of Ara – 24 x 300s
M30 – 10 x 300s
M11 – 12 x 300s

New objects for tonight below

Comet Olbers (Various images)
M54 Glob – 24 x 300s
M14 Glob – 12 x 300s

Well after a great day out visiting amongst other telescopes the MONS where we have observed before, I setup and waiting for the last night to become dark. The night was truly stunning at 0.7’ seeing, warm and calm. Low humidity was effecting us, else all the other elements were playing ball. I setup and captured the Moon

Moon

before heading over to Comet Olbers first.

Comet Olbers

After this I set a run on the Dragons again so to add to my data from the other night.

NGC 6188 Dragons

Once this was set and the rest of the plan was in place I headed off to bed at 1am and left the setup capturing some additional data on both M30

M30 Globular Cluster

and M11.

M11 Globular Cluster

I then went on to image M54 which is really small at 1.6 arc minutes.

M54 Globular Cluster

Lastly I grabbed some data on M14 which is a slightly larger globular cluster at 2.6 arc minutes.

M14 Globular Cluster

In the morning I reviewed the data and unfortunately due to the altitude of some of the objects I did have to reject quite a few frames, however I did capture enough to create a decent image.

Viewing report Travel to Tenerife Night 6 – Tuesday 9th July 2024

Started at 10pm

Focus position main scope 15,946

Ended at 5:30am

Very windy night with 1.6’ seeing! I started with NGC 5982 Draco triplet but the wind was too high at 48.25 km/s! Trailing stars everywhere and guiding was useless at 36”!! So paused imaging until the wind dropped slightly. I continued to monitor the situation from the Teide Observatory Grafana dashboard page here;

http://161.72.1.36/v2/d/cww_ot/common-weather-website-of-teide-observatory?orgId=1&refresh=1m

Back up in my room I can hear the wind whistling past my window. After another hour the conditions were no better so I set the mount to run all night across 3 objects and went to bed crossing my fingers the ASIAIR and AM5 mount behaved well.

I was then delighted by sunrise that I had captured some useful data, not as much as I had hoped but good news enough. I had captured ok data for M11 of 12 x 300s subs.

M11 single 5 min sub

I also grabbed 19 semi successful images of M22,

M22 single 5 min sub

and lastly only 8 not great frame of M30 at the beginning of the night which quite frankly need to be taken again.

M30 poor frame 5 mini sub

Viewing report Travel to Tenerife Night 5 – Monday 8th July 2024

Started to image at 10pm

Focus position main scope 12,315

Ended at 6am

Tonight started with 0.7’ seeing. I was going to start imaging on the Dragons of Ara, however when I slewed I realised it was behind the mountain to the South. So instead I moved slightly up to M19 to finish my run on that glob from yesterday for around an hour in the hope the Dragons would clear the mountain by then and still be West of the Meridian.

M19 single 5 min sub

So by 11:30pm the 🐉 nebula had cleared the mountain and so I started imaging it at some 10 degrees altitude. I was not going to bother capturing more data on other nights as it is very low and the stars are bloated to about 6 pixels rather than 3 pixels. That said, once stacked and Blur Exterminator process was run it was very pleasing. So I may try to capture some more data.

NGC 6188 Dragons of Art – 5 min sub

After 2 hours it was a mere 5 degrees above the horizon and the star size had increased from 3.32 pixels to 6.01 pixels so I decided to call it a day and move to the globular cluster M28 at the top of the lid of the teapot.🫖

M28 single 5 min sub

After that I went on to grab 10 frames of the glob M30 before twilight.

M30 single 5 min sub

Viewing report Travel to Tenerife Night 4 – Sunday 7th July 2024

Started at 10pm

Focus position main scope 12,233

Ended observing at 6:10am

A beautiful night with 0.8’ seeing. Started with a set of globs, namely more data for M62,

M62 single 5 min sub

a new globular cluster M80

M80 single 5 min sub

and globular cluster M19,

M19 single 5 min sub

then finally the Crescent nebula which I managed to grab just shy of 3 hours on. I ran all the way to twilight at around 6am and then packed up for bed by 7am.

Crescent Nebula 48 x 5 min subs

Crop of Crescent

Viewing report Travel to Tenerife Night 3 – Saturday 6th July 2024

Started imaging at 22:20

Focus position main scope 12,330

I ended my observing at 6:15am

Tonight started with low cloud making it slightly hazy although the seeing was around 0.7’.

I found setting the guider to a shorter exposure of 3s improves the guide graph considerably.

Makarian’s Chain – Final stacked image from 3 nights of data

I took another hour of Markarian’s Chain before moving on to M4 for another hour of data.

M4 single 5 min sub

Next I slewed to the first new object for tonight M62 another glob very close to M4. I took 12 images of M62 the globular cluster in Ophiuchus.

M62 single 5 min sub

All was going really well so I moved on to M39 the Open Cluster Cygnus and being high up I took 2 hours of data.

M39 single 5 mins sub

Lastly before bed I took my first set of data on the Crescent Nebula NGC 6888

NGC 6888 Crescent Nebula single 5 min sub

Viewing report Travel to Tenerife Night 2 – Friday 5th July 2024

Started imaging at 10pm

Focus position main scope 12,327

Camera temperature -15℃

Ended imaging at 5:45am

Very calm night 0.7’ seeing and at the start little to no wind. The temperature was around 16-17℃ all night.

Started with Markarian’s chain again to gather better data than yesterday’s. Captured 15 x 300s tonight. I’ll do another final set tomorrow.

At 23:45 I moved on to M4 a globular cluster in Scorpius. I will continue with this again tomorrow night as I landed up with about 1.5 hours of usable data.

M4 Globular Cluster – stacked only

At around 2am I moved to M55 as M4 had got fairly low in the sky so I will come back to that tomorrow night. I did find there was too much time spent refocusing so I have now changed this to only as the temperature changes and at the start of a new image rather than every 30mins as well.

M55 Globular Cluster – Stacked only

I captured 3 hours on this lovely globular cluster.

Viewing report Travel to Tenerife Night 1 – Thursday 4th July 2024

Started imaging at 11pm

Focus position main scope 12,334

Camera temp -15℃

Ended imaging at 5:30am

Beautiful night slightly windy 0.9’ seeing at first but then changed dramatically later to around 2.2’

Markarian’s Chain suffered from many satellite trails, more so early on.

View from the iPad

12 x 300s so 1 hour of Markarian’s chain

By the time I started to image M39 the wind had started to pick up and I found even guiding at 60s was causing star trails.

M39 single 5 mins sub

So about 3am I started taking darks and then by 4:15am the seeing which was really the problem had settled down from 2.2 arc secs to 0.9! I went back and took 30 x 60s subs for M55 and then another 30 x 60s for M39 before heading off to bed.

M55 single 5 min sub

This is the final stacked and processed image

M55 – 33 x 5 min subs