Pleiades (M45) Mosaic

 12/14/23 - With clear skies and no moon, created a 3x2 mosaic in the Indi/Ekos scheduler for M45 using the 8" LX10 EMC SCT with the new Sv405cc and 0.63 focal reducer and the Svbony UV/IR filter.  Initial polar alignment was waaay off -2500"... re-positioned the whole mount in several steps before getting lucky and sticking the alignment at ~4".  Given a forecasted low temperature of about 28 F, set the camera cooler temperature to 25F (-3.8 Centigrade).  Left the camera gain at default...which is a gain setting of 10. Focused with the Bahtinov mask...with only minor adjustment (half a turn).

Forecast for 12/14/23 from Cleardarksky

Seeing forecast from meteoblue for 12/14/23.

Tested 180s collection...settled on 120s x 30 per tile in the mosaic.  Guide errors were reasonable at <4".

Indi allsky sky quality metric for 12/14/2023

Indi allsky star count for 12/14/2023
From this collection, obtained 88x120s light frames total (before tossing out poor collections / trees / guiding issues, etc). 

12/15/2023 -- Started in the afternoon/evening with 30x 0.1s flat frames using the battery-powered drawing pad at lowest intensity. The Sv405cc was set of -3.8 degrees C at gain set to 10.  Repeated as flat darks at 30x0.1s exposure, also at gain set to 10 and -3.8 degree C camera setting.

The M45 Mosaic remained in the scheduler and automatically commenced collection at 18:30.  However -- one set of tree limbs remained in view (so definitely some bad initial frames).  Frame solving succeeded, however, as did the guiding calibration. Note: gain for these is set to 0.
Forecast for 12/15/2023 from cleardarksky.
Forecast for 12/15/2023 from meteoblue suggesting high level clouds starting at ~3am to 4am.
Ultimately, nominal collection appeared to continue until about 2:30am (based on the Analysis plots in Indi/Ekos). 
Indi/Ekos Analysis tab for most of the collection for the evening of 12/15/2023 for the M45 mosaic.


Noted clouds in a test shot for M101 so gave up on collection at ~4am.  Covered the mount and collected bias and dark frames at ~4am with the Sv405cc set at gain of 0 and 10 at -3.8C.
Indi Allsky star count during the evening of 12/15/2023

Indi Allsky pseudo-Sky Quality index during the evening of 12/15/2023.


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