This has been a very exciting journey so far and I only wish the weather would be more co-operative.
Hopefully with autumn around the corner we will start to see better skies and I can really put this camera to the test.
I need a good all nighter to really get to grips with the camera.
On a night when I was least expecting clear skies I got some!
There was a strong wind component though, likely fallout from the cyclone not far north of here during the week.
Setting up takes somewhat longer and you need to pay plenty of attention to all the cabling!
Man that stuff becomes a spider's nest real quick if left unattended for too long!
So once the scope was set up and a two star alignment done the chief objective for tonight was to figure out more of the setting from the internal menu on the cam and see what each does or does not do.
Setup for tonight:
Skywatcher 102.
Mallincam hyper colour.
UV/IR cut filter and focal reducer.
First target for the night,
C85, IC 2391 also known as The Omicron Velorum cluster.
This was the first test subject.
I wanted to try reducing the star bloat and getting the colours right.
This proved to be easier said than done and after much fiddling I was happy with a image of a cluster in full glorious colour!
NGC 3132, C 74 also known as The Eight burst planetary.
Now this one I was not sure of, I have never seen this fellow visually so was not sure if I had it on screen or not!
At some point I will need to haul out a atlas printout and scour the field proper and try identify this object.
NGC 3532, C 91, also known as the Wishing well cluster.
This cluster is just bursting with stars and very bright one's at that!
Again some small tweaks(more like fiddling and hoping for the best) was required to again reduce the star bloat to an acceptable level.
But once that is done the image is a joy to view.
Did I mention all this is in FULL COLOUR!
Also your night vision does not need to be well dark adapted since you are viewing a monitor, so going indoors there is no need for the eye patch!
C 102, IC 2602 also known as The Southern Pleiades.
This cluster is large and has very bright stars!
More fiddling and the image was as fine as I have seen, again the colour is the deal clincher here!
NGC 3372 also known as the Eta Carina nebula.
Any of you that know me know this is my all time favourite object!
It also took me quite some time getting the settings good enough to show the large gaseous and nebula regions.
But once I found the sweet(to me) spot the view was outstanding!
Did I mention full colour?
I invited my wife Trish out for a look and she was blown away, sadly with no pun intended the wind was also blowing her away and she headed back indoors after only a minute or two.
This had a negative impact on the image as now and again the OTA would shake with a strong gust of wind leaving star trails all over the place!
Depending on the settings this can take a while to correct itself but once it does it is a magnificent object!
NGC 3201, GC
Again this needs differnt settings to bring out the best image, I struggled with keeping the background dark enough but also bringing out the cluster nicely.
Again a very pleasing image when all is said and done.
Oh and that colour thing!
41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak, comet.
Ok the mag on this according to Stellerium is 11.6.
From what I can tell the cam has no problem getting down that low.
I did a goto on a nearby galaxy(NGC 2903) to get close to this guy, I could not be sure if I could see the comet or not.
I then tried for a close by star, closer than the galaxy.
That was SAO 80809.
Still not sure if I had it in the field of view or not.
I will revisit this one for sure.
At this point the clouds had realized what I was up to and sent reinforcements real fast!
In no time at all I had too many clouds interfering with the view and the cam clearly does not like that!
From red to white screens with each passing bank of cloud.
It got to the point where I parked the scope and powered down.
Two hours later and the blanket of cloud was still stubbornly clinging to the skies, so that was that and the toys went back in the box!
Video astronomy is growing on me in a big way!
Makes viewing objects so much more fun when there is colour and both eyes are used!
It also punches through the LP here in a dramatic fashion and I can actually see the smudges that are galaxies.
I hope to pursue a few more of those once I have got the hang of this setup.
I tried to take a picture of the screen with Eta Carina on it.
Sadly my cellphone takes terrible images of the monitor, all the wrong background colours and lines all over the place that are not seen with the eye.
There are hporrible blues and purple colours in the background and yet on the monitor it is black!
Only right down at the bottom half of the picture can you see the black background.
So please forgive the quality of the image below, but it gives you some idea.
At some point I hope to get a screen grabber and try taking some decent pics to share, but based on the cost that will be a while yet!
So that was the fun had under African skies last night!
Thanks for reading and comments, hints, tips all welcomed!
Tonight is looking promising so hopefully there will be another opportunity to get some video astronomy under the belt!
Clear skies!!