NGC 2903

2/27/26 - No clouds, giant moon (82%).  Because of the size and duration of the moon (all night), narrowband imaging is really necessary... but there are limited targets in view.  Noted M97 is at a favorable position. 

Seeing forecast for 02/27-28/2026 from meteoblue showing almost no clouds but large persistent moon.

Seeing forecast from clearoutside for 02/27-28/2026 showing favorable conditions overnight.

Starting around 20:00, launched a polar drift alignment in PHD2 running on the Odroid C4 desktop over RDC.  Started at ~28' and after two adjustments (to the left, pre-meridian flip) brought this down to 0.26'.  Ran an autofocus in the background with the venerable Meade zero-shift autofocus hanging off the Shoestring Astronomy controller. Reached a minimum HFR of 3.76 after six iterations.

After slewing to M97 and starting the focus routine, noted that it's still buried in trees and unlikely to emerge over time.  Switched sadly to NGC 2903.  Started crafting a scheduler with 2x80s UV/IR filter light frames followed by 20x120s dual narrow-band filter light frames... but after seeing an example UV/IR light frame, switched this to just 20x80s UV/IR lights for the duration.

Noted that guide errors from PHD2 were low (~1" RMS).

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