Tag Archives: NGC869/884

Good sky, calibration improving, guiding failed

NGC869-LRGB900It was a beautiful clear day and the sky remained clear through the night, we continue to have unseasonably warm weather, and the moon rose late, so last night was an ideal evening. Before dark, I mapped the horizon height all around the observatory, to configure Maxpoint and other software. Then, after dark, I carefully re-did the Gemini alignment routine on the mount, and overcame the pointing error problems I’ve been having. Finally, I put the 0.8x focal reducer into the imaging train to do some wide-field imaging, and recalibrated the focuser with this new setup.

One test image just for fun: a wide-field view of NGC 869/884, the Double Cluster. It seems to have worked well, including the automated filter changing, and alignment of the colours is good. As an image I’d like more colour depth and better colour calibration, but that will follow. Continue reading