Bad Night for Imaging
Posted: 2 November 2018
Thursday, 1 November 2018, the sky was cloudy for most of the day but cleared as sunset approached.
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Open: Thursday, 1 November 2018, 1812 MST Temperature: 73°F |
Session: 1296 Conditions: Mostly clear |
Equipment Used:
12" f/8 LX600 w/StarLock
2" 24mm UWA eyepiece
Focal Reducer
Camera:
D850 DSLR
SYNCed observatory clock to WWV time signals.
1819 MST: LX600 ON, StarLock OFF, High Precision OFF.
Viewed Saturn then Mars, 102X. Seeing was not good.
Viewed the globular cluster M30, 102X. SYNCed on M30 as it was close to a faint asteroid I wanted to image this session.
Mounted the D850 DSLR at prime focus + focal reducer, focused on the star Fomalhaut, and locked the telescope mirror.
1857 MST: Stella Wi-Fi Adapter ON. Used SkySafari 6 Pro to GOTO Asteroid (1602) Indiana, named for the state of Indiana and Indiana University. It was Magnitude +17.2 this night and it was low in the southern sky. I worried that the skyglow from Tucson would hide it.
1858 MST: StarLock ON.
I did two StarLock autoguided images (5 minutes, ISO 6400, White Balance 5000K) separated by one hour to try to capture Asteroid Indiana. In the interval between the exposures the StarLock frequently lost its guide star due to the poor seeing. During post-processing I determined that the faint asteroid was lost in the skyglow and so not imaged. I will try again in about a year.
2008 MST: StarLock OFF.
Removed the camera.
2016 MST: High Precision ON.
Viewed M74 (galaxy), 102X. SYNCed on M74. Mounted the DSLR at prime focus to image M74 for my Extragalactic Supernova Project. Focused and locked the mirror. I tried several times to image M74 but the StarLock kept losing its guidestar. I finally decided to give up imaging this night as the seeing was just too bad.
2048 MST: LX600 OFF.
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Close: Thursday, 1 November 2018, 2058 MST Temperature: 55°F |
Session Length: 2h 46m Conditions: Clear |
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