Observing Session - Autoguiding and Seeing

Time

20230711T1900-20230712T0230

People

Onkar

Places

PHYS 433C, Dome

Goals

1. more seeing frames

2. continuing tracking/ag study on an astrometric field

3. play with travel scope + celestron travel scope 70 combo, see if it can work as a guide scope

Log

1. opening up

   1. onkar opened dome up at around 8pm

   2. turned on vent and propped open door w fan

   3. checked everything else is still fine

   4. installed asi294mm on axis

   5. plugged in finder scope cam

   6. opened mirror doors approx 9pm

   7. saw st4 cable disconnected from guidedream, not sure why that is, onkar proceeded to plug it back in

2. travel scope shenanigans

   1. onkar very professionally mounted travel scope to the side of spotter scope

      1. note to self, take pictures of the mounts and fabricate a proper one

   2. installed asi178mm onto travel scope via a lot of adapters

   3. plugged in asi178mm into icron extender

   4. tried focusing on star

   5. could not focus on star, need to zoom out more or use barlow

   6. sad

3. Arcturus

   1. slewed to it

   2. set object position

   3. phd2

      1. enabled multi-star guiding

      2. had to make a new profile, called it 20230711

      3. using finder scope cam (2600mm pro)

      4. looks pretty cool

      5. Open

         

   4. focusing

      1. got it dialed in at 2114.9 focus

      2. Open

         

   5. took 5 frames at 10s exposure w phd2 enabled

4. vega

   1. pointing WAY off, ignore arcturus frames

   2. slewed to actual vega

   3. multi star guiding didn't work, phd2 is all over the place, using single star guiding instead

   4. took 5 frames of Vega at 30ms exposure

5. reattempting arcturus

   1. guiding still kind of wonky, big jumps in dec

   2. fwhm monitor

   3. 5 frames at 10ms exposure, phd2 on

6. m5

   1. if guiding wasnt bad before, it definitely is now

   2. taking 5 frames 3 min exposure each, but stars are looking a little ovalish

7. m57 - ring nebula

   1. onkar wants to take pretty pictures

   2. onkar is going to take pretty pictures

   3. attempting ring w asi294mm long exposure, then with live stacking, then maybe switch to asi482mc long exp or live stacking

   4. asi294mm 3 min exposure:
      
      

      3. not bad at all

   5. swapped to 482mc

      3. note, there were visible clouds in the sky

8. fun

   1. onkar pointed at many targets and forgot to write it down, but tldr took some live stacks of cool stuff

9. closing up

   1. slewed to zenith

   2. closed mirror doors

   3. closed dome

   4. brought down on-axis cameras

   5. turned off remote power switch

Notes

1. observatory is spooky alone

ToDo

Data

Saved to google drive

Weather