Ad Astra Observatory

Art Morton wrote:
> All three of these images are fantastic and show that you are tuning

> in. In either case here, your optics are quite good. The stars are
> pinpoint and the colors are beautiful.
Thanks! Yes, these images are better (and easier achieved) than before
the polar tweaking and greasing and balancing.
> 5 min guided is just fine for camera.
It is now; I had not been able to do 5min guided before. The drift was
so bad that the stars would trail even when the guider was running. They

would drift *more* without the guider, but 3min was really the limit.
> I seem to reach the sky limit at 600 seconds.
That’s 10 minutes. I haven’t even tried a 10min image yet. I think that
I’d probably saturate the blue channel if I did. I don’t know if you can
see it, but the 5min image was *very* blue. I really wish I’d shot M81
instead of M42. I’d love to see what

> I may try the sky filters for cities next.
I’m only using the LDAS-IPS. I do make the wife shut off “most” of the
lights in the house while I’m outside. You might need an additional
UV/IR blocker? Mirrors don’t reflect IR, but lenses let it right
through. Do a little extra due diligence, and I think you’ll solve the

“skyfog” problem.
> It just seems that I can not get a steep or deep as you can.
I think this is more blooms than anything else. Go after something in an
otherwise star-poor section of sky, and I think you’d be able to surpass
me. Also, try narrowband. Seriously. Stars won’t bloom if you’re doing
Ha and OIII. They’re full-spectrum sources, so they attenuate a *lot* in

narrowband. Rather than $1200 of new camera, I think you need $1200 of
Astronomik 7nm matched set of filters.
> I am glad to hear that the grease improved things.
Me too. I think it will be worth it to do Dec, too. I’ll wait a bit,
though — it’s clear this morning.
> There also seem to be a gear seating issue that also improves with

> use. I can now adjust that out, but it takes plenty of rain time to
> do that. Once you have both of those done, you will not need to work
> on that for a year, or at least that is how I treat it.
I think that I blindly stumbled onto a decent setting. I haven’t checked
my PE or anything, but it’s definitely smoother now, no binding, and I’m
ready to just work on picking up a few targets (Heart/Soul, Rosette)

that have been eluding me before they disappear into spring.
> The five minute guiding seem to be perfect. What are you concerned
> about?
I’d never been able to do 5m before. We’ll see what I can get done if
the skies cooperate.
> I will not be able to provide any comparative data for a while.

): I’ll try not to rub it in.

J