Perfect conditions on 9 Oct and the result is the best guiding performance I have ever had (so far); RMS < 1". Chiller at 2.5 A, 10.5 °C. Synched from ε Cas and was dead center. Realigned using a frame from 6 Oct, then moved over to get the next panel of the mosaic. Partway through the run I lost USB connection to my cameras and had to recalibrate; guiding was still very good afterward, but not as good as before, which leads me to believe that guiding performance is more strongly dependent on calibration than I had thought. Combined all but the upper left panel with Photoshop Photomerge; the stubborn upper left panel had to be put in by hand. I probably could have denoised this more, but I’m going to leave it as is now.
Date: 6, 9 Oct 2014
Subject: IC 1805 / NGC 896 / Sh2-190, Heart Nebula
Scope: Orion ST-80 + Antares 0.5x telereducer
Filter: Baader Hα
Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)
Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 2.3.1 (Win 7 ASCOM)
Camera: DSI IIc chiller at 2.50 A, 3.5 to -1 °C (Oct 6); 10.5 to 9.0 °C (Oct 9)
Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.2.1, no dither
Exposure: 13x600 s (bottom left), 23x600 s (top left), 23x600 (bottom right), 34x600 (top right)
Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, no flats, OSC red channel extract, normalize, square, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.
Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.289 Crop; Develop 65%; HDR
ptimize; Contrast; HDR: Optimize; Life:Moderate; Track Grain size 5.0 pix; Magic:Shrink 1 pix. Photoshop CC 2014 + Carboni Astronomy Tools Photomerge, Gaussian blurred layer combine (top left), Hα false color; Astro Frame
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