Author: IMT

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

Viewing Report 19th August 2023

20:14 – 23:22

Gingergeek came over this evening with his travel rig to setup and test again before our trip. My travel setup is packed away so instead I will image with the 12″ this evening, the first time since May!

Guiding setup was an issue. I did not need to re-calibrate, however TSX kept guiding on a hot pixel. I realised after a long while this was because there were no bright guide stars in the FOV so used the rotator to find one then everything just worked.

Then had a bug with taking a set of images where the run kept using the blank filter. I added another row in TSX and deleted the original which solved the problem. Cloud came in just after 11pm to shut the dome up.

M15 5 min exposure

Viewing Report 24th& 25th June 2023

23:00 – 02:00

4 Epsilon Lyra Double Double star – 31mm I can see the double but not split the 2 stars; 13mm Ethos allowed me to split the doubles and the 10mm whilst slightly dimmer afforded me a slightly wider split

Cat’s Eye Planetary Nebula – 31mm very small not quite pinpoint of light visible nicely without a filter, OIII filter makes it slightly more apparent and Nebustar filter it looks marginally better; 13mm Ethos provided brighter nebula, again the filters provided a better view with the Nebustar being brightest; 10mm is the best view of them all with a definite oval shape East or West, right to left but now OIII produced the brightest and clearest view although it is pushing the seeing tonight

Turtle Planetary Nebula – Not seen

Rasalgethi Alpha Hercules Double Star – 10mm too much for tonight, could not get good focus but could easily split; 13mm Ethos the best view with brighter primary in yellow, very striking and smaller secondary blue; 31mm Nagler just splittable but both components look yellow.

Albireo Double Star – Bright large yellow primary and smaller but still bright blue star in the 13mm Ethos

M13 Hercules Globular Cluster – lovely in the 31mm Nagler; 13mm Ethos much brighter view and obviously larger with resolving more core stars; 10mm darker background so contrast better and even brighter core and stars more obvious with direct vision, including nice pair at 10pm on the cluster

M57 Ring Nebula – planned but not attempted

61 Cygni Double Star – planned but not attempted

NGC 6891 Open Cluster in Lyra – not seen in 31mm Nagler

NGC 6702 & NGC 6703 Galaxy pair – planned but not attempted

M56 Globular Cluster – 10mm dim resolvable , 13mm slightly brighter resolvable averted vision

NGC 6765 Planetary Nebula – planned not attempted

A really good night overall, the eyepieces lent to me from Bob are excellent and make the viewing more pleasurable being able to switch with my wider field of view ones.

Viewing Report 13th June 2023

23:00 – xx:xx

So the 22″ Dob is still out of action with the encoder cable needing repairing from a recent issue with snagging. I’ve ordered some RJ9 connectors to replace the one on the RA axis that is broken. So instead I thought I would open the dome and given the perfectly clear weather with no chance of rain, I would image Arp xxx with the 12″ that Bob Trevan had recently imaged with his 17″ and leave the scope running.

Due to the brightness of the sky when I started it was impossible to find a guide star, thus I have decided to perform almost lucky imaging of 1min exposures. Again given the background brightness this time of year, if I were to try lucky imaging of this faint object of say 1/10th of a second, it would not appear.

So I have set the scope running with 240 images to take in luminance and will come back in the morning and check the results.

Viewing Report 10th June 2023

22:34 – 01:00

Tonight was a visual night. GingerGeek and I used the 22″ Obsession Dobsonian to view some of the wonders of the late Spring sky.

We started with Venus with the aid of a Moon filter. Whilst Venus is bright and not too overwhelming in the eyepiece, the contrast afforded by the addition of this particular filter aids the clarity of the image as Venus sits on the bright backlight of the night sky this time of year. Venus is in a gibbous phase and you could clearly see a concave arch to the edge of Venus that was missing. The seeing was very steady and we were able to push to 179x with the 13mm Nagler.

Next up was Mars. Whilst it took a while for it to appear in the astronomically twilight sky, I swept the area North East of Venus and landed the target after a few moments. Mars was so very small compared with Venus, obviously red as seen without a filter in this case and slightly shifting in colours due to the seeing. By the time we had finished looking, Mars had appeared in the night sky.

Now the sky was getting darker we wanted to start on the deep sky objects. It became apparent very quickly there was a problem with my alignment. This was a problem I faced the last time out and the trouble is with he RA encoder. The RJ11 cable has been pulled and needs recrimping. So for tonight it was about star hoping only 🙂

We then went on to look at globulars M3, M92, planetary nebulae M57 the Ring nebula and M97 the Owl nebula. We tried to get M101 but the sky brightness would not allow it. We also looked at Mizar and Alcor that I could see from 11:30pm as a double, and we looked at Polaris and it’s double star companion SAO 305 through the scope.

The planetary nebulae were seen through an OIII filter and Tele Vue Nebustar filter. I thought the view was slightly clearer through the Nebustar filter, maybe due to the slightly wider bandwidth which includes H-Beta. The Ring nebula was very crisp and I thought I could discern the central star which is 12th magnitude. Our friend Bob was kind enough to lend me a set of eyepieces he recently acquired. The Tele Vue 10mm Radian eyepiece gives 230x through which we could see the central white dwarf.

Whilst looking at the globular clusters we pushed the magnification to 288x with the 8mm Tele Vue Radian. Both this eyepiece and the 10mm gave fantastic views with the globulars sparking with pinpricks of lights from the 1,000s of Suns!

Viewing Report 27th May 2023

22:14 – 03:00

Takahashi FSQ85, QHY268C and Pegasus NYX-101

GingerGeek came round again tonight for another full night of imaging.

Focus position at 19,506 for Luminance at 22:30 hours.

Started with M100 a galaxy in Coma Berenices. LRGB at 300s sub frames as I have not imaged this galaxy before. However I found this was too close to the Moon so I will revise another night. So I moved onto M10 for RGB, as I have luminance data from Spring 2020 I took 4-6 of RGB as M10 was then too low as it passed the Meridian.

Unfortunately due to the Moon and on reflection looking at the luminance data from April none of the data is of significant quality to be able to use, so I will have to reshoot.

Viewing Report 26th May 2023 (M101)

22:47 – 03:15

M101 for me this evening to try and get there RGB data in one night. GingerGeek has come round to test out his travel setup, he has a Takahashi FSQ85, QHY268C and the Pegasus NYX-101 harmonic mount.

Focused at 20,105 on Luminance so RGB will be 21,105

1 x 300s Red

Taking 2 minute exposures for each colour at -25℃. I then realised 5 minutes is so much better. So at 1:30am I then started exposing at 5 minutes with the plan to combine both data sets. The SkyX worked brilliantly as can be seen below, looking after the guiding and image capture.

The main challenge I had early on was the the dome shutting unexpectedly. I will attempt to find out why over the next few months. The camera noise continues to be an issue but less so tonight so I think it may be USB related, again I will troubleshoot and check there cable lengths.

GingerGeek had a productive night troubleshooting a multitude of problems on his untested travel kit and was pleased with the results including taking his first image of a supernova in M101.

Viewing Report 20th May 2023

22:27 – 03:12

Imaging from IMT3b this evening using the 12″ CDK. Decided to test and see what my image scale would look like compared to Bob’s 17″ CDK. Bob had recently taken an image of Hickson 68 and in particular NGC 5353, a spiral galaxy in Canes Ventatici.

So I’m out and all is clear and calm, temperature is around 12℃ after a pleasantly warm day of 21℃. I am now shooting 1 minutes exposures as did Bob and I will take 70 of these. Of course to be comparable I would need at least 4 times the amount give the light grasp from Bob’s 17″.

By 1.13am I had finished 70 x 60s exposures for NGC 5353 including flats and darks. Then I slewed to M101 to start collecting RGB frames, however I needed to get the camera rotated back to the right position. Firstly PixInsight’s plate solving script had gone from my install since the recent update so I need to fix that. So instead I used image link in TSX. Using the following process I managed to correct my FoV frame and then sync the rotator to the current view. I then opened the M101 image from the 21st April and used that as a reference to then rotate the rotator to align.

  1. Take a photo and Image Link it
  2. Rotate the FoV Indicator to match the position angle and synch it
  3. Unlink the image
  4. Open the original M101 photo
  5. Rotate the FoV Indicator to match the linked photo and tell the rotator to rotate

Finally got the imaging run on M101 started at 3am for RGB taking 2min subs. I remembered to move the focus position out by 1,000. So I went from luminance at 19,329 to Red 20,329

Need more flats and darks for M101 later tonight.