There’s still a lot of Moon but I didn’t want to waste a rare (this year) winter clear sky. I added a second powered USB hub and cable for exclusive use by my imaging camera. This has seemed to help eliminate the freezes during downloads I’ve been experiencing, but Sequence Generator Pro still tends to crash when guiding fails as the target sets. This is my first-ever attempt at 20-minute subframes with this set of optics, though I have tried it once before with the 90 mm Quantaray lens. I’m happy with the result although the stars are a little bit “eggy”; now I need RGB data so I can add some color.
Date: 24 Feb 2016
Subject: Cone Nebula
Scope: AT8IN
Filter: Baader Planetarium 7 nm 1.25” Hα
Mount: EQ-6 (EQMOD)
Guiding: Orion ST-80 + Antares 0.5x focal reducer + DSI Ic + PHD 2.6.1.1 (Win 7 ASCOM)
Camera: DSI IIc, no chiller CCD 1-2 °C
Acquisition: Sequence Generator Pro 2.4.3.25 with Nebulosity 4.0.4 ASCOM camera driver
Exposure: 17x1200 s
Stacking: Neb 4, bad pixel map, bias included, 33 flats, manual RGB extract R (CMYG camera), match histograms, trans+rot align, Nebulosity 40-60tile stack, Resize Catmull-Rom 2x.
Processing: StarTools 1.4.305: Crop; Wipe; Develop: 83.12%; HDR
ptimize; Deconvolute: 2.6 pix; Track: Smoothness 87%, 4.5 pix; Photoshop CS6 + Astronomy Tools: deep space noise reduction; levels; local contrast enhancement; Astroframe.
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