I knew the moon was going to be fairly bright, but I wanted to have a look at and maybe try to get an image or two of Jupiter. It was nice and clear, a bit warm, and very humid.

I recently picked up a 16mm Nagler on Astromart and was looking forward to giving it a try in the SV80BV – WOW! This will probably end up being my main eyepiece for this scope. Nice crisp views, sharp focus, just very nice. Since it is a 1.25″ eyepiece I stuck with all 1.25″ eyepieces so I did not have to keep switching out the 2″-1.25″ adapter.

The notes in my log are not as I usually do them – Object: Description of what I see. This time they are a bit more free form, I guess I was just not feeling very structured during this session.

I tried to check out several Messier objects before moon rise, but even with the moon over the horizon the bright light from it still made a wash of the night sky. I did get a view or M27, M57, M13, and M15 but because of the bright moon light I was not able to see very much detail for any of these. M13 was very faint and I was not able to resolve and individual stars with either the 16mm or 7mm eyepieces. M27 looked like a faint bubble and showed no detail.

Jupiter was just awesome! Very clear and crisp in the 16mm and 7mm. Even very nice and sharp in the 4mm Radian. Lots of detail in the 4mm – one dark band and at least two visible lighter bands. The views through the eyepiece were just spectacular! The four Galilean moons of Jupiter were very bright and easy to spot. I could keep all of them in the FOV of the 16mm and 7mm eyepieces. (I made a rough sketch of their position in my log, I might scan it later)

I hooked up the Orion DSI II camera to the Televue 2x Powermate and took 100 exposures at 0.04 second and 100 exposures at 0.05 second. I was a bit out of focus on the second set so they are pretty much trash, but after stacking the 100/0.04 seconds I ended up with my best Jupiter image yet.

I ended the night with a look at M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Even with the bright moon the galactic center was easy to find and looked very nice in the 16mm. With a darker sky I think this object will end up looking amazing with this eyepiece through this scope.

For all images I used PHD for guiding, MaxIm DL Essentials for imaging with the DSI, and Deep Sky Stacker to stack the exposures.

On Saturday (7/3/2010) I set up to image through the Celestron 6″ SCT with a f/6.3 focal reducer while using the Astro-Tech 66ED to guide.

Early in the evening I used Venus to get the two scopes aligned and to test focus of the imaging camera and the guide camera.

After doing the two star alignment on the mount I used the polar align routine on the hand controller to make sure I had my alignment down. Not bad, had to make a few minor adjustments.

I then redid the two star alignment using Spica and Arcturus for my alignment stars and Antares, Deneb, Albireo, and Vega for my calibration stars.

The first target for the camera was the globular cluster Messier 4 (M4). It took some work to get the globular in focus, and I think I am still a little off – something I am going to have to work on a bit. The first set of images were over exposed, I changed the screen stretch to MaxVal and that fixed that. I ended up with 10 60 second exposures.

I then moved on the Messier (M80). I forced calibration in PHD after moving to each new object. I ended up with 10 decent 60 seconds exposures and stacked them to get the image below.

Messier 22 (M22) is a great globular cluster to observe visually and I think if I can increase my exposure times a bit it will be a great one to photograph as well. The image below is 12 60 seconds exposures stacked.

This one was not on my plan, but Mary Shannon had seen M57 at the SkyWatch on Friday night and wanted me to try to get a photo of it. Messier 57 (M57), also known as the Ring Nebula, turned out to be my favorite image of the night. My guiding was off, I think I have an issue with balance, but the 7 30 second exposures look pretty good stacked.

Sunday (7/4/2010) night was a bit warmer with a light breeze. I decided to image through the Astro-Tech 66ED with an Orion Skylight filter and use the Celestron 6″ SCT to guide. I just wanted to get a feel for the difference in imaging between the two scopes.

I went through the same alignment process as the night before. Again using Spica and Arcturus to align and Antares, Deneb, Albireo, and Vega for calibration. I did not do the polar alignment routine, the GOTOs to the calibration stars were pretty much dead on so I figured it was probably still in good alignment.

The first target was Messier 10 (M10). Here are 16 60 second exposures stacked.

Then on to one of my new favorites to observe Messier 20 (M20) the Trifid Nebula. It was hard to find in the camera at first, the nebula does not show up until you increase the exposures to 10 seconds or more, because of this it took some work to get it close to center. I ended up with 21 60 second exposures and I think it turned out great.

I still had a problem with guiding. It wanted to drift south and the guider could not keep up. Not sure if it is a polar alignment problem or a problem with balance. Going to have to look at this a bit more. The PHD test moves the mount fine E & W RA and N & S DEC so I think the guide pulses are being sent. Going to have to research this a bit more to figure it out.

Both the 6″ SCT and the AT66ED produced decent images with DSI. With the wider field it was easier to locate and center images in the AT66ED. I still need to work on fine tuning my focus but I am pretty happy with how the images turned out. I learned a lot about the camera, the scopes, and the process plus I really enjoyed taking them (that’s what really matters).