Digital work at GSSP 2014

Friday and Saturday night (June 27 & 28) were busy for my cameras at GSSP.

Friday night had some clouds obscuring most of the eastern sky while the south and west remained clear-ish.  Luckily, the clouds that did appear were black and wouldn't mar any exposures, so long as the autoguiders tracked through the murk.

The Pentax K10D banged away at the snake nebula through some gaps in the clouds.  Being in Adin, which is far north of my normal position, this target rides low in the sky.  I was concerned about the stars being soft.  However, so long as the tracking was good, the data gathered was perfect.  Stars were tight and small.  Once home and after I'd gone through the black and white film, I was able to process the digital data.  Notice how the flare from a bright star is entering the shot from the left.  I think it's time to paint the T to Kmount adapter.

Snake Nebula at GSSP 2014
Snake Nebula at GSSP 2014


Saturday was super-clear and great and thus I was busy from twilight to twilight.  I had to spend more time at the start of the evening because polar alignment had sagged on both the GM8 and G11 due to the soft ground.  Altitude had drooped by 4 arc minutes on the G11, somewhat less on the GM8.  To take advantage of the good skies, I shot the Veil Nebula.  However, I did not take the time to check focus again as the temperature had dropped, so all the subs were slightly blurry.

Veil Nebula at GSSP 2014
Veil Nebula at GSSP 2014

In both shots, I used the HEUIB-II filter, which is a UV-IR filter with a notch just above 650nm, helping to remove the red skies that my full-spectrum DSLR is prone to give.  The filter helps dust clouds show up nicely. 



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