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
High resolution on Astrobin:
The annotated image:
Session details
| Telescope | VIXEN ED80sf |
|---|---|
| Corrector | TSFlat2 |
| Effective focal length | 600 mm |
| Camera | Canon EOS M100(a) |
| Mount | Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro |
| Guiding equipment | TS-Optics 50 |
| Guiding camera | Omegon 1200b |
| Date of capture | 2023-03-23 |
| Exposure (lights) | 30 × 300 s |
| Total integration | 2 h 30 min |
| Calibration frames | FLATS, BIAS |
| Sensitivity | ISO 400 |
| Capture setup | Ubuntu, EKOS/INDI, PHD2 |
| Processing | 2022-03-24 – Affinity Photo |
| Reprocessing | 2023-12-21 – PixInsight, Affinity Photo |
| Location | Koblenz, Rheinland |
| Focal ratio | f/7,5 |
| Image scale | 1,28 ″/px |
| Field of view | 128,0 × 85,3 ′ |
