I was pretty sure my early shots wouldn’t be usable, so adjusted my auto-focus settings to run a bit more often. However I noticed this meant my subs had quite a bit more light pollution. I was set up before my target was above the horizon, so I took the chance to gather 20 x 90s dark frames then. I always keep a checklist of my steps, even once it’s routine, and so following the previous night’s list setup and imaging went well. I set up in the same spot, and things went much more smoothly. I went back the next night, tired, but determined to get more data. In total I took 83 subs that first night, wrapping up around 2am before taking flats and heading home around 3am. This target is very low on the southern horizon, meaning I was imaging through a lot of light pollution and atmosphere, but the histogram looked reasonable and the stars looked sharp, so I went for it. I took a sample 90 second sub, and examined the histogram.
I quickly ran the numbers through the framing wizard, correcting for the error, and chose a slightly different framing, centering entirely on IC 4603. My actual FOV was 1.51 degrees, where the framing wizard showed 1.85 degrees. The framing wizard view and my telescope’s view were off. This is when the final surprise of my evening happened. Once that was resolved getting it guiding was pretty straightforward.įinally, around 11pm, I was able to slew to my target and work on framing.
#Real reflection nebula trial
It took some trial and error before I found it worked reliably on my laptop’s USB2 port. However, the next challenge was that my guiding camera, the iGuider built into the CEM70 mount, would not stay connected. Having solved that and getting things into focus, plate solving was then working. Once I realized that, I swapped out spacers so I could get into focus, and reset. I was unable to get into focus, so plate solving wasn’t working. Polar alignment with the CEM70 went well, but then I hit my first snag - I’d forgotten that my last time using this camera was on my SCT, not the short refractor. I completed setting up in the dark, and got to figuring out my workflow.
I found a new spot to set up which gave me far better views of the entire eastern sky, from North to South. The light pollution at the farm has gotten noticeably worse since I last imaged there, but it’s still far darker than in town.
Unforunately it also has very very tall floodlights for the softball diamonds that would be in any view of the sky I wanted - even once the lights were off for the night, they made the area a poor choice, so I headed back to the farm southwest of town where I typically image. Initially I was going to image from a new location, Rock Run Youth Park, which is East of town and looks to have very dark skies. Reds from pockets of glowing hot gas giving off HA light add to the mix of color in the region. Several bright stars light up the dust blue in some areas, while in others the dust is so thick no light makes it through, and in others it’s a dusky brown. It’s a fascinating bit of space, dark clouds of dust obscure the region. Happy to finally have another chance at the region, I decided to focus on the reflection nebula IC 4603.
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