Tag: M26

Viewing Report 20th August 2022

20:36 – 00:39

Back for a second night tonight. M26 is the target again to get some more quality data on the open cluster.

I will set the camera back to Gain 10 Offset 10 to allow for maximum exposure with minimum star saturation. I have had some cloud this evening so far which caused the dome to close. Now it has cleared I have reopened.

Focus run at 22:04 gave 15,965 on Luminance. I left the observatory running at around 12:30am and headed off for bed.

I noticed in the morning the dome had closed and the imaging stopped 40 mins before completion. There may have been clouds so I will check the rest of the frames later. I should have then refocused again later as it drifted again. I reviewed the LRGB frames however the guiding was not brilliant and some of the frames have trailed. I took Flats and Darks in the morning for completeness.

Viewing Report 19th August 2022

22:43 – 03:06

First tonight was to take some 300s darks for the other night for NGC 6765. I only needed 5 of them so spent the first half hour on that.

Then looking at what I could do before the Moon comes up around 11:30pm, I have a couple Messier objects on my list to go after. M26 is the initial one to tackle. I will try a low exposure for luminance and longer on RGB.

Initial focus position is 17,782 for Luminance. I then had to take a new set of darks for the Lodestar camera. I am not sure why these no longer match.

@ 23:53 I started imaging M26 LRGB, L = 60s, RGB = 300s

M26 – Red 300s

Focus run at 1:06am 16,879 for Luminance

Finished imaging just before 2am when the object was too low and the bottom of the dome slit was in the way. I then went on to grab flats and darks.