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NGC 744, William Maxwell

NGC 744

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 744, William Maxwell

NGC 744

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

A rather unassuming open cluster. Because of the limited filters in the wheel, I shot luminance, blue, oiii, and ha, mapping the oiii and ha to green and red. Seemed to work pretty well although the colors seem a bit different. It also help cut through the haze and full moon.

This also marks my first sucessful run fully automated with  the SCT.  One compromise is the platesolving/centering -a small tolerance at this focal length  takes numerous re-tries which can be time consuming.

The platesolving also does not take into account aesthetics which are hard to determine until a sub is actually seen.

Despite that, having fully automated systems is a beautiful thing. It allows the entire run to be set up in advance. Plus there is no waiting between steps (unpark goes right into slew which goes right into focus which goes right into plate solve...). Its a very efficient way to operate even if one is present through the entire process.

The wildfire smoke is here in earnest...now at an "unhealthy" level. Not as bad as some years, but the scopes are parked and I'm, for health reasons, relegated to the indoors until it clears.

Comments

Histogram

NGC 744, William Maxwell

In these public groups

Cloudy Nights