The Heart of The Heart

IC1805, The Heart Nebula.

 

This is a large extended object and is really too large for my field of view without using a focal reducer, so this is really The Heart of The Heart or Melotte 15. This was 10 exposures of 300 seconds in each of RGB filters.
Taken with the Atik383L+ through my Avian Starseeker 100mm ED APO. I Used MaximDL 5.21 to do the imaging and also the guiding with a QHY5 camera snd the telescope guidescope.
MaximDL was also used for the calibration and stacking and the image was post processed in Photoshop CS3.

:)

Chris

First Image of the 2012/2013 Season

I tried something different for the first image of the new season.

M13, the Hercules Cluster.

I did this on Friday night, using MaximDL 5 for the guiding (first time I've used it, have been using PHD previously) and image taking.

It is LRGB, 20 off 120 second exposures in each filter, stacked and calibrated in MaximDL 5 and post processed in Photoshop CS3.

Everything worked OK on the evening, so I'm off to a good start.

:)

Chris
 

Summer now over, ready for the new season.

I've upgraded the Observatory PC this summer. It now has Windows 7 instead of Windows XP, so i've been slowly testing everything out to make sure it all still works.

It got a new graphics card, more memory and a new monitor.

I've had to redownload the drivers for a lot of the kit, and the last one was for the LX200 just last week. Now I have the guiding working again I'm in positioin to start imaging for the new season.

Then Virginmedia wanted to upgrade my broadband modem. Once they'd left I'd got a good internet connection, but the wired network in the house and out to the Observatory wasn't working.

I ended up installing a 2nd network card into my PC to provide the internal wired network. Took me a couple of days to sort that one out.

Anyway I'm in business again, so watch here and the website for my latest images.

:)

Chris