After dinner the sky was dark and clear and excitement was high so I set the telescope onto M47, my first target for the evening. Then the power went out! It was momentary, while the pc was booting up again, the power dropped out again! Good job I put an SSD drive in, an old style hard drive probably wouldn't have handled it! By 20:45 I was on M47, plate solved, (still a buzz every time the
21:05 Moved onto M109. Solved and guiding, captured a couple of 300 second and a 500 second faint fuzzy. Some nice spiral structure visible but I'm not aiming for competition entry standard so should be ok to qualify for
12:20 Slewed to M108. Even fainter than M109. Abandoned in order to crack on.
21:30 M97. Well pleased to see a faint smudge on the screen as soon as the telescope stopped moving. I used the
22:00 M66. Slewed round to Leo to get set up on M66. All looking good with some faint spiral arms visible but then I lost the guiding half way into the first capture. Got back to it and grabbed a couple of subs.
22:20 M65. Another faint fuzzy at 300 seconds but a nice bright core and a hint of spiral arms.
22:45 Final target, M63. Plate solved, test frames done, guiding re-calibrated and set up. Bright core, visible outer core and some fuzzy faintness in an elliptical surround. Looks like enough to bring something out in processing.
23:10 I set
00:50 Lights all done. Set up (just 5 cos it was late and cold!) Dark frames capture. Took the dew shield off the end of the telescope and used my cardboard and duct tape Dark frame cover for the first time! Followed by 20 Bias frames.
01:30 Tried using the Flat frame cardboard and duct tape box but the LEDs didn't come on! That's annoying! Probably should have tested it before reaching the point of use!
All done! packed up and went to bed. Learnt two new things. Firstly the dog came out to say hello half way through the night and left me a present, turns out dog poo and brick patio are almost the same colour in the light of a red filtered torch! Secondly, it's a good idea to keep the wires tidy using the twisty wire things with a couple of turns clockwise. Then it's easy to undo them in the dark with a couple of turns anti clockwise.
Right, I've got some processing to do now!
Thanks for reading.
Regards
Graeme
