Astro Session - December 26, 2017

December 26, 2017

I took several hours of hydrogen-alpha, oxygen 3, sulfur 2, and RGB images last night. Here's the color version of the Rosette Nebula (nebular region) with OIII and SII frames added to a bunch of Ha frames I shot at the beginning of the month.

Okay, this new astro setup worked well (see yesterday's post). I just bolted on the mount, did a quick polar alignment, and I was taking beautiful twenty-minute exposures of NGC 1499 (California Nebula). I shot some hydrogen-alpha of the California while waiting for the Rosette Nebular region to come into view.

I have been on this automated portable astrophotography path for a while; it's been a slow but continuous process of remote controlling my entire astro imaging rig from anywhere. I set it up, and as long as there's power and wifi, I'm good to go. This latest iteration, making the whole rig portable, is going to make things easier on those nights when I know I'll only have two hours of clear skies. Before now I wouldn't even think about setting up because that could eat up an hour alone. (Atik414Ex mono CCD, William Optics GT-81, CEM25P EQ mount, WO 50mm guidescope with ZWO ASI120S-MM guide cam, INDI/KStars/Ekos observatory control)