63 Cyg A collimation test. LRGB (Pat Rodgers)

63 Cyg A collimation test. LRGB

After the previous weeks tweeks to the focuser tube trying to eliminate the diagonal tilt I could see in my NGC 7026 image the latest adjustment was finally getting close. This collimation test is the mirrors collimated to that nights tube position. Not perfect but miles better stars all over, bottom right is still showing some elongation but overall I'm happy and can except the small errors.

Just 6x60second subs in each filter LRGB.

NGC 7026 is middle right edge.

B

Description: The Luminance stack with its FWHMEccentricity stats. My eccentricity has been in the 0.6 region so a big improvement.

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C

Description: The associated maps which show the tilt of the whole image and the FWHM across the frame.

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D

Description: Vega RGB 15x30s each filter. 5th July 2018. Vega still not central in its halo, have since altered the primary. I still have this elongated flare around 7 o'clock, and there is tilt showing across both diagonals. Although my primary was still warm the focus tightened up considerably later in the night. It was 21 degrees at 11pm when these subs were taken.

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E

Description: 10th July 18.
Vega with Mire de collimation imposed over a single sub. Ugly flare has gone. Star is still elongated towards the left. Hopefully my next minor adjustment will solve this. I now know the spider vane towards the bottom is closest to the focuser.

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F

Description: The rgb stack with a slight stretch to make it non linear. Easier to see the error in this image.

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G

Description: 10th July 18. RGB 30sx15 each filter with the FWHMEccentricity maps. The FWHM map looks a lot better than the one from the 5th.

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H

Description: Vega RGB extratcted Lum added 10th July 18.
Getting there.

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I

Description: Three nights corrections. Earliest is on the left, tonight's on the right. All Vega.
The left image shows my usual pinch effect via the clear V shape around 7 o'clock. The middle shows how the star has moved with the correction shown in the amateur draughtsman's image to follow. The right image shows my latest correction tonight.

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J

Description: Forgive the drawing I'm no architect. With a collimation cap I found which spider vane is nearest my focuser, the bottom one and moved the vanes as the top right drawing. Which resulted in the middle image of Rev I: The top right amateur drawing. But it moved the star up and the pinch disappeared. You can see by the concentric circle its still off kilter. This is the image of Vega in Rev H:

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K

Description: After the previous correction of moving the star up in my spider, it looked a simple case of moving the other spider vane to centralise the star. Not so, however I corrected the caps the star would move around the central axis. It dawned on me the secondary needed to move. So I LOOSENED the screw whilst taking frame and focus images. Loosened as in my orientation and star error. If the error is opposite then tighten the central bolt or screw. This moved the star along the other axis i.e left to right, as in REV I: The right image is tonights collimation of that secondary position with camera attached. Still needs a small adjustment but it's getting there.

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L

Description: Last nights Vega 15thJuly18

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M

Description: Knowing the camera chip is nearly squared to the rest of the optics with the camera and filter wheel in place, I made my final tweeks after this image. The star is slightly left and down from the center, So a tiny loosening of the secondary central screw to move the star right in the image and a tightening of the spider vane opposite the eyepiece ( slackening the Eyepiece vane), should do the trick and leave a perfect Vega at last.
Several accolades would follow along with Astro imager of the year ( in the cheap tackle category ) a shoe in.

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N

Description: Adjustments made and Vega on the meridian the scope had flipped for this image.
Whoah!
Back to the drawing board. It's not a disaster but the tiny adjustment on the central screw was a tad too much. I've hopefully corrected that last night and have re-collimated to the new focuser tubes position. I will test again tonight.
Image M and N are from the 18thJuly18.

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O

Description: Have corrected the error introduced the last image.
This is the blue white supergiant Deneb from the 25th July 18. The Eccentricity error for the image is 0.44, when I started this collimation process the error was 0.6 and change. A big improvement.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	2168792
PixInsight job	YYHTQTHUZ6RUI07CYAE4UZSIDIYVIO71
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	20h41m23s.51
RA (top/left)	20h42m47s.60
RA (top/right)	20h42m02s.59
RA (bottom/right)	20h39m59s.38
RA (bottom/left)	20h40m44s.82

Dec (center)	+45°17′01″.1
Dec (top/left)	+45°05′26″.4
Dec (top/right)	+45°34′26″.6
Dec (bottom/right)	+45°28′31″.7
Dec (bottom/left)	+44°59′34″.5

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