Author: IMT

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 degrees celsius. 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

Viewing Report 8th June 2024

22:00 – 02:46

A clear night again. With 3 weeks to go to another Tenerife holiday and only 3 hours of nautical darkness in the UK, I decided to galaxy hop tonight. First up NGC 3953 in Ursa Major.

Next up NGC 4088 also in Ursa Major.

So it’s still lightish and therefore the background is still up around 2400 ADU. However still managing to image. Here is NGC 3631 in Ursa Major.

Now onto NGC 3631 again staying in Ursa Major.

I did have more problems with noise on the guide camera this evening so I need to take a look at the power supply line for it. Meanwhile I loose the odd 5min sub as it jumps 5-7 pixels. NGC 3726 follows in Ura Major.

Now I’ve moved to NGC 3675.

Going to stay in Ursa Major of the time being.

So here is NGC 4051

Last one for Ursa Major as it is now 1am and setting

Now I’m in Canes Venatici. Here is NGC 4151

Wow and then there was NGC 4244 which looks like a great thin galaxy worthy of further imaging.

And then I found this lovely irregular galaxy NGC 4214 which is very similar looking to the irregular interacting galaxy NGC 4449 the other night.

Then I tried another spiral galaxy NGC 4395 which was really faint and the background is getting very bright now as I approach 2am.

So after an unsuccessful attempt at Aperture photometry on T Coronae Borealis aka “The Blaze Star” I have now closed the dome and am heading off to be as the light continues to increase on these short nights,

Viewing Report 1st June 2024

22:00 – 03:39

Testing the travel rig tonight for the upcoming holiday to Tenerife. Also have the dome open and running to test again the ONAG. I have GingerGeek over this evening to help out. We recalled the travel rig to make sure it had shorter cables to avoid snagging. Then setup next to the observatory. The ASIAIR was setup very quickly and before long we were imaging M51 as a test. All worked well first time.

Meanwhile we had opened the dome and decided to slew to a few objects. First we tried NGC 4656 which is the hockey stick galaxies.

Next up was a very small galaxy NGC 4290 with another galaxy in the field of view.

Finally just before the clouds rolled in we captured NGC 4274.

I then went on to take a set of LRGB images for NGC 4449 that I took a quick peek at yesterday. I noted my focus position today was 17,129 for RGB and 15,515 for L so 1,614 difference

F-Y FD-Y D-Y

Viewing Report 31st May 2024

23:30 – 01:00

Out this evening to try the ONAG from InnovationsForesight on the 12″. Once I selected the right camera as I am using 2 x ASI 1600MM at the moment, one for the guider and one for the main camera, then all worked well, The Device ID seems to keep switching from zero to one and then back at random intervals. The best way to tell which is which is to select the Blank filter and tag an image and if you can still see stars then that is your guider.

Well I took a handful of objects guiding on each one and it just works, the ONAG that is. I took 300s images of M3, NGC 5390, NGC 5033, NGC 4449 and NGC 4559. Each time I took a guide image, selected a star and said autoguide, each time it worked.

I think my focus was a bit off as I had not autofocused, but it proves it is simple to use and repeatable.

Viewing Report 2nd September 2023

21:32 – 00:58

Using the 12″ in the dome this evening to see if I can quickly grab some frames for M15 the Globular cluster in Pegasus.

I’m capturing 60s exposures due to not wanting to oversaturate the stars. I will attempt to get 30 x 60s for LRGB.

Focus position for Luminance 17,131 and RGB 19,505

I captured all frames with the Moon around 88% waining. Some frames were marred by the noise problem on the camera. I have put a ticket into ZWO to see if we can resolve.

M15 processing