[AZ-Observing] M65, M66 Image

From: Howard Anderson <handy13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: EVAC ONLINE <EVAC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, az-obs <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, sac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 16:50:17 -0700

Hi,
Imaging weather at Rancho Hidalgo has been cloudy or very
windy lately.  Managed to sneak in some imaging time though.
(Degraded weather seemed to coincide with the new moon.  :-)  )

I just posted an image of the Galaxies M65 and M66 at:

http://www.astroshow.com/Galaxies/M65-M66.html

My camera has a built-in guide chip.  I do not have a
camera rotator.  There was no suitable guide star available
for these shots.  My LX-200 telescope is very well Polar
aligned (using Iterative Alignment: 
http://www.astroshow.com/astrotip/align.htm#iterative%20alignment%20procedure)
so I can do unguided shots for at least two minutes. 

The image displayed on my web site is made up from "stacks" of
2 minute L, R, G, and B images. 

I think I can do longer unguided exposures if I can get Periodic
Error Correction (PEC) trained better.  I have tapped into the
hand-paddle of an LX-200 using ribbon cable and wired
it toa a  a DevaSys USB-I2C/IO interface board and written
software to allow me to access ALL of the Meade hand-controller buttons
remotely.  A webcam views the paddle screen so I can see
what state the control is in:

http://www.astroshow.com/EquipmentImages/MeadeHandControl.html

I will reinstall this system when I next visit the site.  (I needed to
make a critical software modification...)  This will allow me to invoke the
PEC process remotely.  (Meade provides an almost complete "protocol" for
software control of the scope which I put into HandyAvi.  However,
I don't think they thought anyone would try to do PEC remotely so
their protocol does not include a way to invoke the PEC training
function.)

PEC training of course should be done when conditions are as
perfect as possible, i.e., really good seeing...  So I need to be
able to do it remotely because the odds of me being at the
site when seeing is really good might be slim...  You can use
the camera to autoguide and do the PEC training based on the
corrections being made...

Thanks,

Howard
http://www.astroshow.com



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[AZ-Observing] M65, M66 Image

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