Vern's Weblog » Open Cluster http://www.raben.com/weblog Occasional observations about astronomy, astrophotography, and software Fri, 23 May 2008 04:27:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.2 en M45, the Pleaides http://www.raben.com/weblog/2006/12/09/m45-the-pleaides/ http://www.raben.com/weblog/2006/12/09/m45-the-pleaides/#comments Sat, 09 Dec 2006 21:41:45 +0000 Vern http://www.raben.com/weblog/2006/12/09/m45-the-pleaides/ An image of the open cluster M45 in the constellation Taurus from last evening after moonrise.

M45, the Pleaides

Images taken from light polluted Louisville, CO with Stellarvue A1010 80mm refractor telescope and Canon Xti camera at direct focus. Nine 4 minute exposures were dark subtracted and flat field corrected, stacked, aligned and enhanced with ImagePlus. 

This was a guiding experiment using “PhdGuiding” software available from Stark Labs. Overall, the software did  a good job of guiding.  I have the Stellarvue mounted on a Losmandy rail on the Nexstar11.  A Stellacam II was used as a guide camera and the Nexstar11 as a guide scope. The Stellacam II is excellent as a guide cam due to its low light sensitivity.  No problem finding guide stars with the Stellacam!  The “Phd Guiding” user interface is quite good, far better than most packages. Setup up is simple and the price is right (free).  Only problem I had was the serial interface used to connect to the Celestron locked up after I exited the “Phd Guiding” program.  A logout corrected the problem. It only happened once fortunately. Automated guiding is certainly more fun than tweaking buttons.

]]> http://www.raben.com/weblog/2006/12/09/m45-the-pleaides/feed/ M45, The Pleiades http://www.raben.com/weblog/2006/01/02/m45-the-pleiades/ http://www.raben.com/weblog/2006/01/02/m45-the-pleiades/#comments Tue, 03 Jan 2006 05:29:03 +0000 Vern http://www.raben.com/weblog/2006/01/02/m45-the-pleiades/ Here is the result of last nights experiment to see if I could guide well enough to take two minute exposures. Also, it was a check to see if any subtle nebulosity could be detected in a two minute exposure. The answer to both questions was, “well sort of”. I clearly need more practice in the back yard before I try at a dark sky site. Equipment was a Stellarvue A1010 and Canon 300D direct focus guided by Toucam 740 hooked up to C11. I intended to auto guide, but couldn’t communicate with the scope. I ended up watching the notebook screen and pressing the keys on the controller. Three 2 minute exposures at ISO 800.

Image of M45

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