ASTRO: Jones-Emberson 1 or PK 164+31.1

A new image, not good but it is new.

I'm entering that time of the year when there's so much ice in the
atmosphere even a moonless night images like there's a bright moon in
the sky. I should have used H-alpha for the lum data but wanted to pick
up the blue in the center. I need a lot more time to compensate for the
bright sky (looks dark to the eye until you get dark adapted). But I
needed three months to get this due to weather grabbing a frame this
month, three last month etc.

It's just amazing I got an image at all given this year's conditions. I
have lots of sucker hole frames still waiting more data to complete.
But now with the moon and the ice it might as well be full moon in
downtown Manhattan.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=5x10', RGB=2x10' all binned 2x2 (should have used
3x3), image reduced one third due to poor seeing and signal,
STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

it came out nice Rick!

I shot that several years go but all narrowband

then I linked up with Al Kelly who had taken some data on a 30" as I recall

here is the result of both my independent and the join effort with Al

independent effort
http://www.narrowbandimaging.com/pk164_page.htm

joint effort
http://www.narrowbandimaging.com/pk164_akrc_page.htm



"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
...
A new image, not good but it is new.

I'm entering that time of the year when there's so much ice in the
atmosphere even a moonless night images like there's a bright moon in
the sky. I should have used H-alpha for the lum data but wanted to pick
up the blue in the center. I need a lot more time to compensate for the
bright sky (looks dark to the eye until you get dark adapted). But I
needed three months to get this due to weather grabbing a frame this
month, three last month etc.

It's just amazing I got an image at all given this year's conditions. I
have lots of sucker hole frames still waiting more data to complete.
But now with the moon and the ice it might as well be full moon in
downtown Manhattan.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=5x10', RGB=2x10' all binned 2x2 (should have used
3x3), image reduced one third due to poor seeing and signal,
STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Awesome Rick! You have raised the bar so high I'm not sure I want to get
back into imaging.

Rick Johnson wrote:
A new image, not good but it is new.

John N. Gretchen III
N5JNG NCS304
http://www.tisd.net/~jng3

John,

good to hear from you. Are you recently back or just a long time lurker?


"john" wrote in message
m...
Awesome Rick! You have raised the bar so high I'm not sure I want to get
back into imaging.

Rick Johnson wrote:
A new image, not good but it is new.

John N. Gretchen III
N5JNG NCS304
http://www.tisd.net/~jng3

Welcome back! Where have you been? You left as I was just getting
started. You're 6" shots had a lot to do with my getting back into
imaging in the first place. Think I was using the 6" f/4 when you were
last here with the ST-7. I use that NABG for photometry work on AGN's.
It also works as an off axis guider when using the H-alpha filter
though that is something I rarely need. The Paramount is so accurate I
can integrate for up to 5 minutes on the guider chip and not see any
drift so I usually have a usable guide star on the on camera guide chip
without any hunting around for one. I use the STL-11000 for pretty
photos, weather permitting.

While MySky is now history (or a Meade product) Usenet Replayer has sort
of taken its place. A poor substitute but you can go back and see some
of my images (it misses some) at:
http://www.usenet-replayer.com/cgi/burner1/arhive_engine?bj=1&dir=1&anz=60&apx=1&noadx=1&xsca nwa0cky%40fake.com.x=10&xscanwa0cky%40fake.com.y=1 1

You may have to piece that together.

Rick

john wrote:

Awesome Rick! You have raised the bar so high I'm not sure I want to get
back into imaging.

Rick Johnson wrote:

A new image, not good but it is new.


John N. Gretchen III
N5JNG NCS304
http://www.tisd.net/~jng3

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Hi Richard,
I just pop in every now and then. You have been doing some great
stuff. I really liked the Sh 2-240 shots.

Richard Crisp wrote:
John,

good to hear from you. Are you recently back or just a long time lurker?


John N. Gretchen III
N5JNG NCS304
http://www.tisd.net/~jng3

Great setup, I moved too much darker skies and am in the planning stages
of the observatory. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Rick Johnson wrote:
Welcome back! Where have you been?

John N. Gretchen III
N5JNG NCS304
http://www.tisd.net/~jng3

It took me about a year and a half to get mine up and running. Due to
cold in winter, -35C has been hit twice already this winter, and the
bugs in summer I run things from inside the house. A garage door opener
rigged with an electric eye (not the one that comes with them but
borrowing on the circuit to some extent) the roof won't roll unless the
scope is down in the parked position so it can't hit the scope by
accident. Twice now I've forgotten the scope was up and tried to roll
the roof. Both times I ended up going out to see what the problem was
and was chagrined to find the scope pointing up. I can't see it from
the house as it is higher than the second level of the house by about 6
feet. That way it clears the roof of the house. Makes for a 20'
concrete pier, of which 6 feet are in the ground. The underground part
is part of a 8'x10'x6" slab of concrete 6 feet down resting on a large
sand bed for stability. There's a 2 foot steel pier atop the concrete
one so the scope is a bit over 16' above ground level! The steel pier
has 10 degrees of azimuth adjustment while the mount has +/- 3.5 degrees
of fine adjustment. That made polar alignment very easy to achieve.
Due to changes with temperature alignment drifts slightly with the
seasons but I can track any place in the sky for 5' with less tracking
error than my seeing at 3560mm focal length. Sure beats the 40 years I
spent polar aligning every night I imaged with a portable scope I'd haul
into the country.

Makes for lazy man imaging as I can do it all from the easy chair in the
house. I have the Paramount pointing so accurately now it will put the
same guide star in the guide star box when I return to an object another
night making it a very fast job to take a shot like this one in which
each frame was taken a different night!

Unfortunately, I've not found a way to automate processing images. I
can pretty much automate the photometric work but not the imaging.

Rick


john wrote:
Great setup, I moved too much darker skies and am in the planning stages
of the observatory. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Rick Johnson wrote:

Welcome back! Where have you been?


John N. Gretchen III
N5JNG NCS304
http://www.tisd.net/~jng3

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

"john" wrote in message
m...
Hi Richard,
I just pop in every now and then. You have been doing some great stuff. I
really liked the Sh 2-240 shots.

Richard Crisp wrote:
John,

good to hear from you. Are you recently back or just a long time lurker?


Hey John,

are the bull reds running yet? Man I miss that Gulf Coast fishing. I grew up
in Corpus.... Loved it down there for that reason: lots of waterfowl too.

Can't beat it for the hunting and fishing!



John N. Gretchen III
N5JNG NCS304
http://www.tisd.net/~jng3

The skies are full of geese! More this year than I've ever seen.

Richard Crisp wrote:

Hey John,

are the bull reds running yet? Man I miss that Gulf Coast fishing. I grew up
in Corpus.... Loved it down there for that reason: lots of waterfowl too.

Can't beat it for the hunting and fishing!

John N. Gretchen III
N5JNG NCS304
http://www.tisd.net/~jng3