After my last dusty target (LBN569), this was my next one to shoot with my widefield setup. Built new masters at -5 deg halfway through so I do not have to mess up on the offset setting between RGB and SHO targets. This data was shot in Readout Mode 3 Gain 0 Offset 50 and 10.

Processing this target was not that hard, after recently flipping my blue filter, I found I did not have to battle DBE as I did before. After color calibration, things went just fine in processing. Looking back, I realized I should have done this long time ago as every RGB target I struggled with the blue smudge right smack in the middle of every RGB image and had to test several variations of DBE and limit when saturating the colors. 

I also managed to spend time to get the tilt under control, ASTAP showed 0.31 in tilt and .4 in off-axis aberration. Back in August, I bought the Octopi Tilt adapter and spent almost 10 nights and right when got it all under control, went back the next day to make one final adjustment, but ended up snapping a screw from its clamp ring (oh snap ).  I will have to get that part soon, but for now, used duct tape to fix up the tilt to get the numbers I posted above. stuck them in all 4 corners of the camera's dovetail/nose portion (1 layer on one and 2 layers on the opposing end and tested and the field was relatively flat for me to proceed with imaging. 

The stars in the corner appear to deceive that spacing is needed, but I now realized after all these tests and tweaks, this scope + reducer combo is at its limits with the 3.76um pixel size and every spacing combo I tried, they looked the same as in this image at the corners.  It was a fun experiment though, getting the 106 sent to Tak NA for collimation, finally testing for tilt, only to end up using duct tape to get the field flattened out 

I thought I finally reached a point where I am not going to touch this setup anymore, but Mother Nature had different plans last night. We had some rain in the forecast, no biggie scope was under the covers. But after sunset the gusts picked up and got a storm watch alert with gusts up to 70mph. I wanted to go out to put the tripod covers as a tiny bit was exposed. By the time I could grab my rain jacket and a flashlight, the damage was done. The setup was on the ground! 

Spent the next hour bringing both my scopes mounts to the patio while it was raining and slippery mud. I would have cussed myself a million times, haha.  The Edge setup remained intact, did not move one bit.

But on my Tak, the Cam + FW was hanging to the side by the power and USB cable, tripod's rubber bushes broken off and the mount's Dec axis was locked up. 

Brought the scope in, no damage to the lenses, when viewed from the dew shield. That alone was a big relief.  I put the imaging train back together and fired up the eagle and tested all connections, everything connected just fine. After talking to AP this morning, they sent me instructions to release the Dec motor box reseat it back in place. I was preparing to ship the mount to them thinking something majorly went wrong, but they reassured me saying this is normal when the mount gets bumped, and the mount should be just fine. 

Spent a couple hours today to get it all setup in the yard, real test will be to see if the scope is out of collimation (fingers crossed). If so, I have to get it back to Tak NA, a good friend of mine who works there offered to bring it to the shop and get it fixed up if needed.  

I may luck out and get on with imaging tonight onwards or it will be a while before I get this setup going. 

Until then, clear skies! Hope you like this result.