Slight change in Plans - M40, Comet C/2017 T2 Panstarrs; Whale and Crowbar

I thought I'd take my first shot at a comet. Comet C/2017 T2 Panstarrs is a circumpolar (up all the time) and would make for a nice first capture.

Whale and Crowbar will be fading from view before the Owl/Surfboard so I'd thought I'd get those first. Image from Stellarium.

Meridian Flips with Losmandy Mounts

So, one of the problems it took a long time to figure out are failed meridian flips. I've often been out imaging and when the time for the flip would come, the Losmandy Gemini 2 would do nothing and Sequence Generator Pro would fail as well. Then I'd have to go to counter weight down (CWD) and restart the sequence.

6" Newtonian... 13 lbs

Losmandy GM8 Mount

Here is the setting I had in SGP:

I'm hoping it is turning out the I have a issue with the older Losmandy Motor sticking out and having to have a longer scope bar that would run into it:

Have to see limit to 80 degrees to clear the dovetail plate.

So in order for the scope bar not to crash into the motor, I had to set my Safety Limit to 80 degrees.

So my test was that the flip could not happen because it would flip somewhere past 80 degrees. So to alleviate this, I'll set SGP to not flip till the 10 degrees has passed. 4 minutes == 1 degree so going > 45 minutes past. and this indeed works.

I use the following controls for syncing and flips as well as plate solving in the sequence in SGP:

Imaging Setup and Work flow

Here is my current work flow for imaging. It contains the work around for my Meridian Flip issues which I'll figure out sometime.

Step	Catagory	Description	When
1	Pre-planning	Identify objects; check when they clear the houses and trees; and put into spreadsheet	Days before
2	Pre-planning	Add Sequence to SGP using Framing and Mosaic wizard	Daylight
3	Setup	Tripod to Pad	Daylight
4	Setup	Level the scope using the bubble levels on the mount	Daylight
5	Setup	Add Counterweights	Daylight
6	Setup	Put on Telescope	Daylight
7	Setup	Plug in all the cables including USB and Ethernet cords through window.	Daylight
8	Setup	Put on Coma Corrector and check Collimation	Daylight
9	Setup	Replace cover on front of scope	Daylight
10	Setup	Put on Camera onto Coma Corrector and scope and plug in cables	Daylight
11	Setup	Balance Scope	Daylight
12	Setup	Start up Pocket Power Box software and connect	Daylight
13	Setup	Check connection from PC to Gemini; park the scope with Gemini Software	Daylight
14	Setup	Check connection from PC to Gemini, Camera, Focuser, and Polemaster	Daylight
15	Setup	Remove caps from Scope, Guide scope, and Polemaster	Twilight
16	Pre-Capture	Startup Teamview on PC; Connect Laptop to PC	Twilight
17	Pre-Capture	Start up Stellarium; connect to the Gemini	Twilight
18	Pre-Capture	Start up PHD2 and connect to camera and scope (Optional)	Twilight
19	Pre-Capture	Start Polemaster Software and weight to see Polaris and 5 stars	Twilight
20	Pre-Capture	Run Polemaster routine from PC until Alt-Az adjustments are needed.	Twilight
21	Pre-Capture	Grad headlamp and put on head; turn on red light	Twilight
22	Pre-Capture	Bring laptop outside and adjust Alt-Az bolts	Twilight
23	Pre-Capture	Unpark the scope via Gemini Software	Twilight
24	Pre-Capture	USe Stellarium to slew to target. Watch cables and scope to make sure nothing goes wrong.	Twilight
25	Pre-Capture	Use SGP to get general focus on stars	Twilight
26	Capture	If target is already centered, turn off slew/center in SGP; do blind Sync	Dark
27	Capture	Start Sequence (automatically starts Slew; Center; Autofocus; PHD2)	Dark
28	Capture	Start up SharpCap	Dark
29	Capture	Set camera in SharpCap to "Folder Monitor Camera"	Dark
30	Capture	Set folder in Camera Controls to folder of SGP capture and click "Live Stack"	Dark
31	Capture	Monitor stacking and check in on SGP.	Dark
32	Capture	Enjoy till Meridian Flip time	Dark
33	Capture (Meridian Flip)	Meridian Flip not working yet....	Dark
34	Capture (Meridian Flip)	Decide when it is time to do the flip; pause sequence; Park at CWD	Dark
35	Capture (Meridian Flip)	Grad headlamp and put on head; turn on red light	Dark
36	Capture (Meridian Flip)	Bring laptop outside	Dark
37	Capture (Meridian Flip)	Unpark the scope via Gemini Software	Dark
38	Capture (Meridian Flip)	Use Stellarium to slew to target. Watch cables and scope to make sure nothing goes wrong.	Dark
39	Capture	Resume monitoring and enjoyment	Dark

Next time out - M40 and M97-M108

So I'd thought next time out I'd knock out a couple of Messier Catalog objects. M40 is a double star and really doesn't belong but there are a couple of galaxies that might show up.

M07 is the Owl (Planetary Nebula) and M108 is a nice spiral (SB(s)cd).

Markarian's Chain - 87 Minutes

Part of Markarian's Chain of Galaxies in Virgo. These galaxies are anywhere from 40 million light years to 120 million light years away! Quite the time machine! This is an 87 minute stack of 1 minute captures. I'd like to get 3 hours total so I'll have to resume another night.

Zoom on in the annotated version to see the designations

#astrophotography #astroeverywhere #astrobackyard #losmandy #losmandygm8 #zwo #asi533mcpro #markarian #sequencegeneratorpro

87 Minute stack

Plate Solved annotation via http://nova.astrometry.net/

Building a Dark Library

So today I'll be building a dark library for my ASI533MC Pro camera. Here's my approach in Sequence Generator Pro

ZWO ASI Cameras, Windows 10, and USB 3 Port lesson

Spent 2 hours troubleshooting my Windows 10 machine no longer recognizing the ASI 533MC Pro camera. The night before I unplugged it from my USB3 hub and directly into the sub3 extension cable to do some settings fiddling.

The next day, it wasn't showing up on the hub.

The fix was to plug the usb 3 extension cable into a usb 2 port. Once all the devices showed up, including the ASI camera, I went back and plugged it into the PC's usb 3 port and it works fine.

LESSON: DO NOT plug cables into the hub willy-nilly. Keep them plugged in to the same port every time!

Next PHD2 Calibration Plan

https://openphdguiding.org/PHD2_BestPractices_2019-12.pdf

1. Set calibration steps to 18; Declination to 0 degrees
   
2. Select Star on Ecliptic; less than one hour from Meridian
3. Nudge north for 20 seconds using PHD2's manual guide.
   https://openphdguiding.org/PHD2_BestPractices_2019-12.pdf
4. Run Guiding Assistant
5. Accept recommendations if any from the Guiding Assistant
6. Start Guiding
7. Adjust Dec
1. Be conservative with adjustments
2. Keep min-moves larger than the typical seeing fluctuations – Dec guiding should be conservative (larger min-move) – 
8. Adjust RA
1. RA guiding can be a bit more aggressive (smaller min/move) to correct periodic error

List of Imaging Equipment as of April 2020

List of Imaging Equipment as of April 2020

Mount Control: 

• Losmandy GM8 Mount (Used)
• Losmandy Gemini 2 Controller (using Ethernet control)

Other Hardware

• Pegasus Astro Pocket Powerbox
• StarTech.com 7 Port USB 3.0 Hub
• ZWO Focuser

Optics: 

• SGO 6" f/4 Imaging Newtonian @ 610mm FL
• Explore Scientific 2" HR Coma Corrector
• QHY Mini Guide Scope

Cameras: 

• ZWO ASI533MC Pro
• Canon 6D
• ZWO ASI071MC Pro (Out for repair)
• QHY 5L-II (for guiding)
• QHY Polemaster

Filters: 

• 2" Optolong L-Pro

Acquisition Software: 

• Sequence Generator Pro
• SharpCap
• PHD2 Guiding
• Stellarium for slew and sync
• ASTAP Plate Solving
• Polemaster for Polar Alignment
• Losmandy Gemini Telescope Control Software

​Processing :   

• SharpCap
• Adobe Photoshop
• AstroFlat Pro
• Astronomy Tools Action set

PHD Guiding lessons and YouTube Suggestions

PHD Guiding lesson

I've been having issues getting 'good' guiding and I found one of the tricks to be SURE you are already connected to your PC/Laptop when going through the wizard. By doing this, PHD2 can query your camera and mount and get the recommended and absolute data. The big difference for me was mount parameters:

Compare the difference in calibration steps:

Mount Calibration Steps without Query

Mount Calibration Steps with Query

I'm doing a retest next time out to test this as well as for me, the ASCOM driver for my QHY-5LII camera.

YouTube Suggestions:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgUnpM3vlFrlyf6jvS5mJXvcF11O8o5Bl

M3 Globular Cluster

Messier 3 or M3 is contains the oldest stars in our universe (all Globular Clusters contain the oldest stars). M3 of course is in our Milky Way galaxy and is ~90 light years away and contains 500,000 stars.

Technical Info:

• Optics: SGO 6" f/4 Imaging Newtonian @ 610mm FL
  Explore Scientific 2" HR Coma Corrector

• Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro
• Filter: 2" Optolong L-Pro
• Mount: Losmandy GM8
• Guiding: QHY Mini Guide Scope + PHD 2
• Acquisition: Sequence Generator Pro 
• Exposure: Gain 100, Offset 70 - 136 subs @ 30 & 10 Seconds
• Calibration:    None
• ​Processing :   Stacked in DSS, Adobe Photoshop

Continuing Needle Galaxy and experiment on Globular

So, what I need to do tonight adding to my 26 minutes of time

1. Tune the RA axis on my GM8 (Done)
2. Calibrate PHD on the ecliptic.
3. Use Unity Gain (100 w/ 70 Offset)
4. Test out various times on M3 to see how the core does
5. Accumulate time on Needle Galaxy

ZWO ASI533MC Pro Sensor analysis with SharpCap Pro

ZWO ASI533MC Pro Sensor analysis with SharpCap Pro

Capturing Globulars with ZWO ASI533MC Pro

Here are some settings to try for Globular Clusters