The Session-Story of Messier 35 and NGC 2158
Astrophoto: Messier 35 and NGC 2158: It took months between my last clear sky and this one. I think the last one was in december. Meanwhile a few things changed at my setup.
- I found my flattener distance to the Chip!
- I am now able to expose 300s with my CANON EOS M100. The trick is, to make one 10s photo and then a series of 30, 40 or whatever 300s photos. Don’t know why it works 🙂
- I got my USB-Hub attached to my Vixen.
- Last but not least: I fixed the backlash on my HEQ-5 Pro and did the Rowan Belt Upgrade. I used the discription of astrophotograph Marten: Install the Rowan belt modification kit on your HEQ5 Pro mount – Frosth Astrophotography
Thanks for the video! And also for the backlash video!
So, a lot of changes and here is the high resolution result on Flickr of the reprocessed result (december 2023):
Lessons Learned
Yes, I learned some things, as always. The Flattener position really seems to be good now, although there is still one thing. That will be fixed at Clear Sky 33 🙂
What really makes me crazy, and this is a new problem is, dizzering makes my guiding crazy. I dont know why, bur after dithering my guiding needs heavy corrections.
Same data – advanced processing
Technical overview:
| Telescope | VIXEN ED80sf |
| Focal Length | 600mm |
| Aperture ratio | 7.5 |
| Erecting Lense | TSFlat2 |
| Filter | Optolong UV/IR Cut |
| Mount | Skywatcher HEQ-5 |
| Goto-Control | EKOS |
| Mount Control | INDI |
| Guiding Scope Focal Length | 162 mm |
| Guiding Camera Chip | 4.8mm x 3.6mm, 8bit |
| Guiding Camera Resolution | 1280×960 |
| Guiding Software | EKOS, INDI |
| Dithering | 3 pixel |
| Camera | CANON EOS M100(a) |
| Method | focal projection |
| Camera angle | 30° (as Stellarium) |
| Camera Control | EKOS, INDI, Gphoto2 |
| Photography Date | 03/23/2022 |
| Exposure-Time Lights | 30x300s |
| Sensitivity | ISO 400 |
| Calibrationframes | Flats, Bias |
| Processing Date | 03/24/2022 |
| Reprocessing Date | 12/21/2023 |
| Stacking, Integration | PixInsight |
| Processing Software | PixInsight |
| Image Editing | Affinity Photo |
| Reprocessing Software | PixInsight |
| Capture Place | Koblenz, Germany |
| Lightpollution | Bortle 5 |
| Scattered light | strong |