Observing Reports
December 2006
8th December 2006
Clear sky, but the moon was very bright and gaining height.
Started early tonight at around 6:30pm .
Setting up the equipment is getting a lot easier as I have a routine which I seem to follow each night out.
The object of choice tonight was going to be The Californian Nebula (NGC1499). This proved to be a very difficult object to image as it has a very low surface brightness and using an unmodified 350D didn’t help.
Managed to capture around 2 hours of data but the image didn’t come out that well. I hade a lot of problem with the moon rising and brightening each frame and this object really needs a dark sky.
Suppose its good to have tried for a different object.
Cleared all my equipment away and went back into a warm house. It was pretty frosty and the grass was quite solid.
Looking outside at 11pm it was still clear so I went for a quick look at the sky and noticed a bright star which looked out of place below left of Gemini. It was Saturn.
When I mentioned this to my wife, we decided to go out at take a quick look. Saturn is her favourite object looked amazing as always in my 8” Newtonian. The rings have closed up a lot since last season. I could only just make out the Cassini Division as Saturn was just above a house and still very low. I haven’t collimated the scope for a while too.
Next over to M31 and M45 for a quick look, then pack up and head in.
9th December 2006
The Moon was going to rise a lot later tonight at around 8:30pm . I stared at 5:30pm and positioned the scope on the concrete sections of slab which I have drilled holes for the tripod feet.
I thought I would try and start imaging right away instead of drift aligning the mount.
It appears the mount was setup pretty well as field rotation over a period of 2 hours was not apparent. This saved a lot of time and I managed to capture some great data of M31, 40 x 3 mins @ ISO 400. The stacked image turned out really well.
I captured my flats and flat darks then stared imaging M31 for the next 2 hours.
I noticed that when I had finished gathering the frames of M31 the moon was only just gaining a bit of height so I though best to try for another different object as the sky was still very clear. This time M1 which I have just read was a star that exploded around 900 years ago.
Didn’t manage too many frames of this object but the resulting image was quite good.
I’m pleased I have finally taken an image of M1, it’s a very interesting object. The GoTo function on the scope was working great as it was positioned on the chip of the 350D when it finished slewing over to M1. All I had to do was to reposition it a tad for good framing and I also noticed that a guide star was visible on the toucam making it very easy to start guiding.
Captured my dark frames and once that was completed I noticed that the sky conditions had deteriorated. Glad I went out early.
Another good amount of information gathered tonight.