Heart Nebula, Day 3

Goal: Additional session on IC 1805 to improve noise from 10/2 & 10/3 images.

Started at 09:30 surveying a different spot in the front yard where the mount may not need to be moved since it's possible for a couple clear nights in a row.  Leveled mount and started drift alignment with PHD2 (centered on a bright star close to the meridian & equator) on the HP Proliant 17 laptop... but experienced issues calibrating... but no clear error messages. Calibration seemed to end without producing a valid result.  Moved downstairs and started ~10:45pm.  Found calibration problematic here as well (star did not move enough)... but noted the guide camera focal length was incorrect (168 vs 50mm).  Fixed and calibration went smoothly.  With both PHD2 clients, the Zwo ASI-120mc-s did not expose 2s frames normally -- instead PHD2 complained and moved the camera to streaming mode.

Initial results in AZ show polar alignment error of 5.99' (drifting up). Tightened left...watched polaris move west. Result: Worse -- error moved to 11.6'.  Adjusted again (and also focused the Canon), tightening on the right while watching polaris move back east. Satisfactory results see with polar alignment error down to 2.33'.  Switched to elevation by slewing as far east as possible on the equator. Results in altitude were usable with polar alignment error at 2.2'.  Turned off PHD2 and switched to the internal guider.  Set up a job in the scheduler to repeat a 40 frame collection until 5:30am.

Experienced issues with the Zwo ASI-120mc-s saving frames locally rather than on the client causing issues with the internal guider.  Adjusted settings and saved...autoguiding started at 11:50.  Using 2s exposures and RMS after two minutes showed 1.15".

Copied over initial frame & inspected in Picasa -- results showed hints of the nebula and clear focus, no star trails evident. 

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