Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Aquila (Aql)  ·  Contains:  The star Altair (αAql)
Altair in a Wide Field, StarGale
Altair in a Wide Field
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Altair in a Wide Field

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Description

After my first PEC training with the G11/Gemini-2 on Altair I took some 4 minute subs with the AT8IN imaging newtonian. This result is obtained from a stack of the best 4 of 6 subexposures. Using PEC when and where the training was done must help get better results.

When I set up for a session I polar align using the polar scope by centering Polaris and the second star in their locations on the reticle. I do not use the Gemini-2 polar alignment routines nor do I drift align. When I get enlongated stars I want to know whether it was caused by periodic error or by drift from an inaccurate polar alignment. The stars drifted in the DEC direction an average of -0.3 arcsec/minute and in the RA direction an average of 1.35 arcsec/minute. The drift was fairly constant except when the drift nearly doubled for both RA and DEC for the last two images. Perhaps the camera was sagging or the intervalometer cable was dragging. It seems odd that the stars were as round as they were when the drift was about 4 arcsec for each of the 4 sharpest subexposures.

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Altair in a Wide Field, StarGale