An amazing adventure and some lessons …
I tried so hard on this Heart Nebula. My last chance was to go back to the Hyperstar. It’d never let me down, but this night was going to be very epic.
I could have stated hectic to be honest … It started a couple of days before, when my mount decided it would not start at all … thanks to an amazing support from PegasusAstro, I got a new motherboard by postal two days later.
Great sky on the 17th of May … but I struggled. It started with my polar alignement : landed a bit late at my spot and the sky was already full of stars. I like to catch Polaris early so I don’t miss it in the middle of all the others … though, after 10 minutes and finally getting Polaris, the Polar Alignment was done.
But then NINA was slewing my tube to IC1805/The Heart Nebula and Plate Solving failed multiple times … luckily, the Hyperstar is giving you a quick preview of a nebula … and IC1805 was at the very left of the picture, not centered at all … and that’s the moment I heard a very frightening noise …
… a piggy noise, a running beast, and this noise was coming straight to me, I could hear it … my brain instantly thought about this encounter with a hunter couple of weeks ago who warned me about the 50 boars and piglets in the near woods … yeah, that’s not one my curious foxes, this is a running boar noise …gosh ! I ran to my car and closed the trunk before I jumped on the passager seat … after few seconds I slightly opened the window … no noise anymore … I still waited few additional tens of seconds, holding my breath like it would change a thing … the boar probably ran from a wood to another one. Calming myself, I’m now back to my telescope …
Well, slewing again to IC1805, still this nebula is even way more out of the center. I’m making tiny adjustments … it seems I can’t center it !!! I’m a bit fed up now … I’m that close to pack everything back to my trunk, but I decided “you know what ? you need to forget a bit about IC1805, let’s try another target !”
So I tried another one, can’t remember which one, I got the message … “the mount is out of limits for this target” … come on, you’re kidding me, right ?? Then, a sparkle in my mind … what if ….
I slew back to IC1805, still not centered … but this time I switched my red light : the mount has reached the meridian flip, I can see it now … My first experience about this Meridian Flip I heard so much… Ok, let’s bring the mount to the Home position and wait a couple of minutes.
Ater 10 minutes, I slew to IC1805 …. the mount is going the other way … it was definitively the Meridian Flip ! The target is not centered but I can move my mount now. I center the Heart and the Fish-head … and I start to shoot with the HO filter … for one hour.
An hour later, I change the filter to SO, and launch the shooting for another hour …
The Hyperstar is so fast that I can see the lights shots with already great details. My guiding system is not that great (Total RMS way above 1” … I realized the day after that my guiding system was weakly screwed to the dovetail of my tube … Grrr !), so I decided to go for only 60seconds shots. I need to aim for 3 minutes tests in the future.
Raw stack of all lights
Some early Pixinsight tryouts
Because I didn’t put the anti-dew cover, every single time I opened my car doors I got the car rear lights flashing red, I lost a couple of shots …. but anyway, I’m pretty happy about these shots.
The lessons learnt :
Never, ever give up … I was so close to packing and leaving …
My guiding scope is way too sensible to my car rear lights … I need to park further away
I need to check the guiding system screws … pretty sure it was moving at every windy moment
Pixinsight is a funny and interesting software. Can’t wait for some training on it
NINA can automate a lot of stuff … that’s the second time I’m trying the Autofocus, it works great !
I need to look at the Meridian Flip automation in NINA.
My SIIOIII shots were not at the expected levels. First the stars were oblongs and then the blue-green was too faint, and finally I got a lot of noise from these shots. I probably need to work on the camera features (low noise and gain)
Exifs : Celestron C9’25 + Starizona Hyperstar + PegasusAstro Nyx-101 + + PlayerOne Poseidon C Pro cooled at -10°C / Askar Duo Magic D1 filter 2” Halpha/OIII and D2 2” OIII/SII - Guiding System Askar FMA135 with PlayerOne Ceres C
60 lights 60 seconds each Gain 125 filter D1
60 lights 60 seconds each Gain 125 filter D2
Stacked with Siril - Post-Treatment with some tryouts on Pixinsight
