Post-Deck Extension Testing

04/19/2022:  Refurbished & extended the deck... changing the perspective on the sky from the back yard.  Southern views are now possible without lugging the telescope to the front yard.  With a clear night, this calls for some testing.  Albeit with an enormous (if waning) moon at 90%.  Conditions overall:

Meteoblue Astro prediction for 04/19/2022. Clear skies, giant moon.

Cleardarksky.com prediction for MoCo seems to agree (mostly). Note Seeing is also frowny face.

Test target...largely inappropriate for this kind of sky but it's just a test... is M65 simply because it's exceptionally high in the southern sky...and that's the interesting aspect of the sky this deck extension may open up.

Indi Allsky is setup with the (ichy) 8mm Kodak c-mount lens... but is showing this exposure profile from ~20:30 to ~21:00:

Indi Allsky exposure in Seconds from sundown to ~21:00.

Single 13.8s exposure from Indi Allsky cam with the 8mm Kodak C-mount lens showing a few stars, gain cranked to 100 on the Svbony SV305 camera connected with the Raspberry Pi in the surveillance camera housing on the back deck looking North West at about 50 degree elevation. Remarkably, Astrometry.net solved this frame (with the text), as seen here. The frame measured 12.7 x 7 degrees in extent (23.8"/pixel).

Started by leveling the CGEM DX mount on the back deck around 7:30pm (before dusk) and mounting the Meade LX10 with Celestron 0.65x field flattener.  Mounted the Canon T3I (astromodded) with the Astrodon CLS filter in place.  With leaves starting on the trees in the back, there's no hope for the polar scope.  Used cell phone compass to get a rough northern alignment.  Initial plate solve showed an error of ~15,000 arc seconds (actually, not terrible for a completely rough initial position).  In this process, also focused the Meade LX10 using the Canon T3I (astro modded).

Sadly, clouds and the threat of rain appeared at ~22:30 leading to an abrupt end to this initial test.

The Indi Allsky camera tracked deteriorating conditions primarily with the exposure output, as shown here with charts from ~20:30 to 22:30:

Indi Allsky plots from 04/19/2022 from ~20:30 to 22:30 tracking the arrival of clouds.

But suddenly, weatherunderground updated their model... rain chance when to zero to one percent for the remainder of the night.  Skies cleared momentarily.  Then focused on achieving a polar alignment via a phd2 drift alignment procedure.  Ran phd2 on the odroid xu4 via rdesktop.  Initial mis-alignment was bad... -459' (dec drifting way, way up).  This was after a meridian shift for the German equatorial mount after the alignment star drifted past the meridian.  Tightened significantly on the left (~5-8 turns).  This reduced the error to -90'.  Second adjustment brought the error down to -65'. Then -30'. Finally converged to a drift error of ~2.5'.  Set up a job in the scheduler for M 65 which started immediately.  Clouds swiftly appeared before alignment could be started.  The alignment module captured frames with the remaining steps in the job paused until the clouds clear. Finally, skies cleared and the alignment completed successfully.  Guiding commenced, but with exaggerated RMS errors 5"+ and frequent guiding failures. 

Finally, noted that the guide module was configured for pulse guiding.  Guiding became more consistent and guiding failures stopped after switching to using the ST-4 guide port on the ZWO ASI120MC-S guide camera. 

Collection went on unattended until 1:45am with 21 x 120 second frames collected. 

04/20/22:  Weather permitted the OTA and mount to remain untouched during the day. Set the scheduler to launch a new M65 collection for 4/20.  Initial testing with the Canon showed the OTA remained in focus (no adjustment necessary with sharp stars) and the internal guider showed RMS errors far better than yesterday night (~1.9" RMS) with a fairly nominal Drift plot.  Started collection with the first frame completed at ~21:32.  This is helpful since clouds are scheduled to arrive early tonight.

Meteoblue astronomy prediction for 04/20/2022 with clouds expected starting before midnight.

Cleardarkskies appears to agree with poor transparency and increasing clouds after midnight.

Indi Allsky charts for the start of the evening (~7:40pm-9:40pm) illustrating a similar sky relative to the previous night -- with a 14 second exposure at 9:40pm.  By 10pm, this shifted to 30 second exposures.

Indi / Ekos Guide module Drift Graphics from 9:43pm after about 15 minutes of guiding. Total RMS was ~2.5".

Sadly, an initial set of clouds started drifting through the scene in the guide camera around 10:25pm. Additionally, guider camera exposure errors cause upset which required manually restarting kstars at about the same time.  After this, skies cleared and collection resumed at around 11pm. In total, 56 frames were collected overnight... with the last obtained at 01:17am.

04/21/22: With sprinkles during the late afternoon/early evening on & off, after collecting 25 flat frames of clouds and 25 dark flat frames with the OTA covered, protected the OTA from any rain with a hefty cinch sac.  Due to thick clouds all evening, didn't uncover until 11pm.  Set up a new M65 job in the scheduler and launched it with some limited clearing skies.  The mount slew to M65 and ekos successfully performed a plate solve from the T3I (4x binning). Guide calibration phase was smooth and initial guiding RMS nominal at ~1.54" after the first two minutes of guiding. Captured three frames before getting interrupted by clouds again.  Examined the initial capture and noted that refocusing was required.

Cleardarkskies astro prediction grabbed at 11pm on 04/21/2022.

Meteoblue astro prediction grabbed at ~11pm on 04/21/2022 for Silver Spring.

Indi Allsky logs for the two hours preceding the start of capture around 11pm on 04/21/2022 illustrating intermittent breaks in the clouds suitable for image collection.

04/22/2023 -- OTA remains outside and unmoved from the initial polar alignment.  While clear at 21:30, still struggling with clouds predicted to be coming in near prime imaging time for M65.  So likely a short imaging session this evening.  After swinging to a star near the celestial equator and meridian, the initial PHD2 drift alignment (pre-meridian flip) showed ~-12'.  Initial adjustment brought it down to -9 by tightening the azimuth adjustment knobs on the right side of the mount. Ended at ~1.3" polar alignment error.

Meteoblue prediction for 04/23/2022 showing the moon diminshed to 39% and rising past the point where M65 will set below the minimum collection elevation. But mid level clouds remain a problem.

Indi Allsky charts for ~20:30 to 21:30 show skies with relatively poor outlook for imaging based on a 10 second exposure.  Shortly after this set of graphs was captured, exposure increased to 23 seconds.

After alignment, the guiding module showed a tight initial drift plot with RMS of ~1.35".

Collection proceeded nominally with 60 light frames measured until the target slipped below the minimum altitude where it was visible. Adjusted the scheduler to add collection for an additional target higher in the sky -- the globular cluster M53.  42 light frames were collected from ~2-4am.  The Indi/Ekos scheduler interrupted collection at 04:32am and parked the mount automatically due to the astronomical twilight rise limit (plus a 10 minute buffer).

M53 after processing frames in Astro Pixel Processor.

04/24/22: Noted remarkably clear evening at 10:30pm... decided to attempt a few captures before clouds roll in later in the evening / early morning.  

Clear dark sky prediction for 04/24/2022 with little cloud cover and reasonable transparency (but poor seeing expected).

Meteoblue's astro prediction for 04/24/2022 suggests heavy clouds starting to build after midnight.

Indi Allsky camera analysis shows great skies after about 21:30.

Performed a focus and PHD2 drift alignment.  Initial error of -10" (likely post-meridian flip...started by tightening azimuth adjustment knob on the left side). Over-adjusted... produced 21" (Dec trending down...upps). First correction after this: 8.61". Second: 1.86". Having finished focusing and alignment, launched the scheduler in Indi/Ekos with jobs for M65 and then M53 at 11:28pm.   Ultimately, 42 M65 light frames were collected and 33 M53 light frames were measured.

04/27/22: After rain and clouds, a clear night (and no moon) provided an additional excellent opportunity for collection.  Tape was used to mark the CGEM DX tripod position so that it could be placed back near the original location.  Focusing and then drift alignment started near 20:00.

Indi Allsky camera graphs for 18:20 to 22:20pm showing clear skies with solid exposures of 35 seconds.

Cleardarksky prediction for 04/27/2022 showing no clouds, good darkness but relatively poor transparency and seeing conditions.

Meteoblue astro prediction showing some cloud through 1am and poor seeing.

The tape appeared to work with an initial polar alignment error of ~2.1' (measured via drift using PHD2 running via remote desktop from the Odroid XU4). This was small enough no adjustment was attempted.  Generated Indi/Ekos scheduler jobs for M65 (repeating until 02:50) and M53 (repeating until 05:00).

Initial calibration and guiding errors were relatively small (2.41" total RMS).

Initial Indi/Ekos guide module drift graphics and statistics after the first 5 minutes showing a total RMS of ~2.5".

M65 and M66 -- 2/3 of the Leo Triple captured between 4/19 and 4/29/2022 (20880 seconds, 5.8 hours of exposure total).

After capturing 34 frames for M 65, noted a posting from a Virginia EAA blog concerning a newly discovered supernova, SN2022hrs in NGC 4647 (which sits in Virgo just beside M60).  Flicker page here.  Original details here.Canceled the current collection in the scheduler and generated a new job for NGC 4647.  Noted poor focus during the realignment.  Refocused and restarted the collection.  At this point, the Indi Allsky was up to the maximum exposure time of 40 seconds.

The SN2022hrs supernova was visible in the first alignment photo (9 second exposure at ISO1600, F6.5).  Captured 30 light frames between midnight and 2am...however clouds rolled in starting around 01:30 limiting collection.

Screen grab of a 9 second alignment / plate solving capture from the Canon T3I 0n 04/27/2022 with M60 nearly centered and the SN2022hrs apparent to the lower right of the galaxy.

04/28/2022: Started at ~21:00 refocusing with alpha Sextantis and then checking the polar alignment with PHD2 running on the Odroid XU4 via remote desktop.  This showed a remarkably small initial polar alignment error of ~0.1' after drifting for ~5 minutes.

Metoblue astro prediction for 04/28/2022 showing no moon, no clouds and mixed values for seeing.

Cleardarkskies prediction for 04/28/2022 with dark skies but average seeing.

Initial PHD2 guide plot during drift alignment showing a remarkably small initial alignment error.

Initial twenty minutes of the NGC 4647 guiding module statistics, drift plot and graph in Indi / Ekos for 04/28/2022 showing RMS errors of approximately 1.5 to 2 arc seconds.

04/29/2022: An additional clear, moonless night opened up.  Set up Indi/Ekos scheduler for NGC 4676 light frame collection before leaving for a concert.  Came back at 11:30pm to find over forty frames collected successfully.  Left the scope to collect additional frames.  Pulled frame #88 at ~1:30am to check the focus ... and noted that the focus was sub-optimal.   Refocused on a nearby star and restarted.  Collection continued until 03:10am with 119 total frames collected.

04/30/2022: Clouds are rolling in tonight and rain in the forecast for tomorrow... so limited opportunity for collection this evening.  Curious what the alignment error may be... and whether a few collections could fit in between cloudy periods.  Used M3 as a test case (in the eastern sky).  Drift alignment in PHD2 showed a misalignment of 11.8' after several minutes of drift.  (Pre-meridian flip) tightened on the left to correct to ~1.5'.  Indi/Ekos internal guider showed guide errors of ~1.57" total RMS following this alignment (over 7.5 minutes of guide data).

Clearoutside.com prediction for 04/30/2022 showing a grim outlook for tonight's imaging opportunities.

Meteoblue's astro prediction for 04/30/2022 showed similar trends with cloud cover.

Cleardarksky prediction tracks similarly for 04/30/2022.

Indi Allsky graphs for ~20:30 to 21:30 on 04/30/2022 showing mixed skies with exposures varying from 30 to 20 seconds (using the 8mm Kodak C-mount lens).  These rapidly dropped to ~11 second exposures by 21:45.

05/2/2022: NGC 4647 -- Evening started with a clear, moonless night ... but once again mid-level clouds are predicted. In a fit of optimism, attempted to get the scope set up again (after a break from rain yesterday) to capture a few shots before conditions worsened.  Used marks on the deck to reposition the scope approximately in the same position as 04/30 and ensured the scope was still level. Initial PHD2 drift alignment (pre-meridian flip) showed error of -49.71' (not too shabby for an initial position).  Tightened on the right...leading to -41.2.... then 15.51 (doh...over-correction)... then 10.5... then 0.85.  Following alignment, created jobs in the scheduler for NGC 4647 (repeating until 03:30) and then M 13.  After some delay, the initial NGC 4647 image was captured successfully at 22:43.

Cleaoutside astro prediction for 05/02 showing relatively poor skies.

Indi Allsky graph for ~20:30 to ~21:30 with exposure times up to 30 seconds.

Cleardark sky prediction... which is significantly more optimistic than competitors for tonight's sky conditions.

Meteoblue track clearoutside with a gloomy forcast for mid-level clouds.

PHD2 drift alignment chart for 05/02 (after putting the CGEM DX back out on the back deck following rain yesterday) showing a fairly tight polar alignment achieved after several iterations.

05/29/22 -- clear, dark (moonless) skies tempted the mount and Meade LX10 with Celestron 0.65x field flattener outdoors.  Updated Fedora 36 and found the KStars/Indi/Ekos version shipping with the distribution to be unstable.  Installed the 'bleeding' edge version from COPR repository.  

Started with zero initial polar alignment (put the mount on the back deck roughly pointed north). Ended up remarkably close... with an initial PHD2 drift alignment error of _only_ 100'.  

Clearoutside prediction for the night of 05/29 - 05/30/22.

Indi Allsky camera statistics for 20-24:00 on the night of 05/29 - 05/30/22 with exposures out to 41 seconds.

Cleardarksky prediction for the night between 05/29 and 05/30/22.

Meteoblue prediction for the night of 05/29-05/30/22.

After a great deal of bouncing back and forth, was unable to achieve a polar drift alignment error better than ~11' before needing to go to bed.  Selected a new target (NGC 5607) and set up a job in the scheduler.  Ultimately, 120x40 lights were captured. Oddly, despite being scheduled to repeat 3x, the scheduler ran the job only once. Logs provided no insight to why.

 

With the new (bleeding edge) version of Indi/Ekos, the Analyze module provides a record of key statistics from the collection.  Plotting RMS error (combined RA and DEC) and statistics derived from analysis of the guide frames (sky background counts, # of stars) provides a useful indication of the conditions for each frame.  For this collection, these plots look like this:

Plots from the Indi Analyze module for collection on the night of 05/29-05/30/22.

06/04/22 -- clouds expected in the early morning...giving some time for collection early tonight.  Moon is 27% (fairly small) and setting... so looks like a fair evening for some collection... targeting NGC 6946 (fireworks galaxy).  Set up the mount on the back deck around 19:30.  Waited for darkness (~21:00) to start alignment.

Clear outside forecast looks grim... with all red at 10pm.

Cleardarksky prediction appears more optimistic with reasonable seeing and low levels of cloud cover predicted.

Metoblue suggests reasonable conditions until ~3am.

The indi allsky camera shows a reasonable sky with exposures up to 35 seconds.

Initial polar (mis) alignment was ~+343' without any polar scope or other aids (just guesses based on previous mount positions on the deck).  Pre-meridian flip... tightened on the left. First adjustment result: 232'. Second result: ~140'. Overcorrected to -115.  Doh.  Tightened on the right... -70'.... back to 33'. Ended up (after several minutes of drifting) at ~6' (near 23:30).  And clouds started to roll through. 

Ultimately 120s x 69 light frames were collected.  The Indi/Ekos analysis module for the session showed elevated guide error RMS following each dither, but otherwise better sky conditions than predicted with collection continuing through ~3:30am.  The session concluded with this note in the Scheduler, "2022-06-05T03:35:24 Job 'M 13' is now approaching astronomical twilight rise limit at Sun Jun 5 03:35:23 2022 (10 minutes safety margin), marking idle."

The Indi Allsky timelapse for the evening showed thin, high clouds with exposures between 13 and 25 seconds (so, definitely not great conditions). This seems commensurate with the prediction from meteoblue.

In the AM, flats were collected against a blue sky... and dark flat collected with the OTA covered and pointed at the house.

Indi/Ekos Analysis plots for the session on 06/04/2022 for M13.  Higher guide RMS errors following each dither likely due to attaining a relatively poor polar alignment at the start of the session. 

  06/05/2022:  Additional clear night with the CGEM DX and LX10 left out during the day. Moon is waxing at 30%, however... which is unhelpful.  Started late after a tough round of Hearts with initial alignment check starting at ~11pm.  Examined focus on 109 Virginis and the LX10 remained well in focus...no adjustment needed (oddly).  PHD2 running on the Odroid XU4 showed an initial polar alignment error similar to last night at ~7' (pre-meridian flip).  One adjustment (tightening on the left) brought this down to below 3' after several minutes of drift.

M13 processed from 63 of the light frames and dark/bias frames collected on 07/03 (collected indoors).

Clear outside forecast for 06/05/22 showing good conditions, overall.

Similarly positive results from meteoblue for tonight's forecast.

Cleardarksky is also showing a cloud-free evening... with some challenges for seeing.

The indi allsky camera shows improving skies with exposures up to 37 seconds.

Set up the scheduler for M 63 (sunflower galaxy) first (for 40 lights), and then NGC 6946 (fireworks galaxy) (repeating until 03:30).

Guide results during collection appeared good... with RMS guide errors of ~1.5" or less.

Indi / Ekos guide module during M63 collection showing guide errors of ~1.25" RMS.

Oddly, the Scheduler did something odd. Fourty-two lights were captured for M 63, but the NGC 6946 job didn't launch.  The following was noted in the morning:

2022-06-06T01:27:37 Parking mount in progress...

2022-06-06T01:27:36 Job 'M 63' scheduled for execution at 06/06 22:29. Observatory scheduled for shutdown until next job is ready.

2022-06-06T01:27:35 Job 'NGC 6946' completion time (06/06 03:45) could not be achieved before start up time (06/06 22:58)

2022-06-06T01:27:34 Job 'M 63' current altitude (44.99 degrees) crossed minimum constraint altitude (51.14 degrees), marking idle.

M63 captured on 06/04/2022 with 4800 seconds of integration (40x120s) no binning.