Helix Nebula
I’m back in Sardegna, my second home …Last time I was there, I caught a glimpse of Laguna Nebula. This time I have the Hyperstar and I really aim for shooting a lot … but I forgot how stubborn this island is.
Well, everything put in three bags, and obviously the equatorial wedge will not be part of the trip (too heavy … I already have 27kg with the tripod, mount and tube, not counting the accessories such as camera, the Hyperstar lens and laptop …)
I need to manage the rotation of my lights shots (you could see the effect in the Gallery …), but I’m sure that the stacking software Siril will find out by itself.
I got a perfect night, and Helix Nebula is my first target, I like it so much. Everything is setup on the roof of the house, I took the flat shots just before dusk and I felt “I’ll get everything for this shooting, Darks/biases/flats and cooled camera to low temperature to avoid any noise !” . I got a problem with cooling the camera, normally I connect a very long cable to my car plug getting the 12V power source … but here … gosh I forgot how to power the cooling part of the camera. Hopefully, I thought about it before this perfect night, and quickly ordered a 5V/12V cable so I could use a power tank for phone charging. I received this cable and it works, converting the 5V USB to 12V for the camera. All is good ! Let’s start to shoot !
Well, as you may expect from the post title, something happened … the island is deciding that this year will be a very humid year … 88% of humidity in the air … two hours of shooting and my C9 tube was weeping droplets like a river … I decided I will not compromise the mount electronic, nor the camera or laptop … this will be the only night of shooting for this trip, sadly. Next year should be a dry one (jinx ??)
I have a cool colored Helix (thanks to the UHC-S filter) but my dark sky is not black as I may have expected … let’s say that the only street light of the neighborhood was the perfect annoying suspect (very close to Helix direction ….).
Just a note on the stars, they have these spikes … because the Hyperstar is in front of the tube, the cables for the camera (one USB to the laptop, the other for powering the cooling part) are diffracting the light … I managed later on to make a nice 90° with these cables so the spikes would be nicer.
Exif : C9”25 + AltAz + Hyperstar Lens + Baader UHC-S filter + ZWO ASI183MC Pro cooled at 10°C
120 lights 30s Gain 111 / 20 biases / 20 darks / 40 flats
