Posts

M 31

Image
 09/09/2026 -- no clouds (early) and no moon later.  Good night for testing ... and more fixes following Ubuntu 26.04 upgrade on the Odroid C4 plus continued surveillance and testing for the 'streaking stars' problem (that apparently really was the 12v power plug pins going into the mount).  Seeing forecast for 09/09-10/2026 suggesting no moon and relatively few clouds expected overnight. Lots of setup-and-configure problems after installing the stock (non-bleeding, Ubuntu) Kstars on top of the ppa indi drivers.  Lots of mis-configuration issues (optical train).  Gradually fought through a range of these until all the tabs in Ekos appears to be working.  Focused the guide scope... and started a drift alignment.  Found polar alignment error at 9.6' (turn to the right).  Set up the scheduler with M31 mosaic and launched it.   Ultimately, over night several light frames for one part of the M31 mosaic were collected, but guiding failed to ru...
Post a Comment
Read more

NGC 6960 / IC 5146 / M31

Image
 08/18/2026 -- Finally, after lots of cloudy / rainy nights... an evening with few (if any clouds) and modest moon (setting after 23:20).  After such a long gap, testing basics with a familiar narrow band target -- NGC 6960 (West Veil Nebula).  With temperatures still in the 70's at 23:00, set the camera chiller to 5C. Seeing forecast for 08/18-19/2026 showing few clouds...and no moon after 23:20. Started with a PHD drift alignment.  Remarkably, after weeks sitting idle, the initial polar alignment error was modest at -5'.  Turned to the left...noted visible shift in the OTA...and overcompensated at ~9'.  Turned back to the right (again, noted significant shift in the OTA) and saw -17.  :<   Back to the left.  After ~an hour of back and forth shenanigans... eventually brought this to ~4'.  Then tested the internal guider while running an initial autofocus.  Found the current focus for the OTA to be close to optimal...well wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

M92

Image
 07/13/2026 -- No moon, clear skies, great night for broadband imaging.  After prolonged spell with rain, clouds, hot temperatures (crazy hot), finally a night available with good skies.  Key issue -- trying to diagnose persistent problems guiding and imaging near the zenith.   Did note that cables could be a problem. Placed a cable tie on the mount to try and relieve the strain from the combined weight of all the cables... but this tie may have (itself) caused strain if the cables were too short.  Lengthened the amount of cable available to see if this leads to any improvements.   But the fundamental problem appears to be disagreement between Indi/Ekos and the CGEM hand controller on when a meridian flip is (or is not) needed. Possible settings changes to the hand controller?  Parameters involving Ekos for the HA limit?  Hard to say... another night to experiment. Set the camera chiller to 5C. Seeing forecast for 07/13-14/2026 from mete...
Post a Comment
Read more

M 63 / M13 / M12 / NGC 6888

Image
 05/11/2026 -- No moon (until after 03:00) and few (if any) clouds... great opportunity for wide band imaging.  Noted M63 is in an perfect location (fingers crossed) for collection this evening. Seeing forecast for 05/11-12/2026 from meteoblue (top) and cleardarkskies (bottom) suggesting good views for this evening / morning. Started with an initial polar drift alignment with PHD2 running on the Odroid C4.  First iteration: 10.19'. Turn azimuth adjustment knob left.  Over-corrected (-6').  Next iteration, brought this down to <1'.  Set up the scheduler for M 63 and the sequence for 0C camera, 20x80s exposure, gain of 285 and offset of 24 (as usual).  The Indi Allsky backyard camera showed a pseudo sky quality metric of ~4960 t 22:25 (great sky quality).  The Weewx outdoor weather station showed: "time": "2026-05-11T22:25:00-0400", "generator": "weewx 5.3.1" "temperature": {"value": 50.95862068965519, "...
Post a Comment
Read more