M33 - LRGB Practising

20:47 27/8/2011 UTC

It's been long time since I've been out imaging for various reasons. We had a small star party or kind of a get together in Ursa Artjärvi Observatory. I had bought a new guidescope and never tested it before. To my surprise it was too long to focus into stars. Of course I was in the middle of the nowhere in sense of mechanical tools (like lathe for example) and just had to improvise. We bravely sawed it 30mm shorter and duct taped (yes you read correctly - duct taped ) the parts together. Guess what. It flexes and my stars looked like chicken eggs in 10 minute subs. But fortunately not that much. I only lost full resolution quality - a little web image is still manageable so I decided to process it anyway. Guiding by the way was fantastic with this little scope. I actually got 0.08 pixel RMS error meaning sub arcsecond tracking accuracy. Now I have the guidescope fixed and I surely will shoot a new luminance to this as soon as I get a new opportunity. Meanwhile I am going to do some H-alfa exposures from my backyard. All in all, a nice and fun start for the season!

NGC/IC Object List:
NGC598 galaxy RA:01h33m51.9 Dec:+30°39m'29" BMag: 6.2, M 33 Triangulum Galaxy
NGC604 gaseous nebula RA:01h34m32.6 Dec:+30°47m'04" BMag: ,

Camera: Atik Instruments 4000LE | Telescope: Skywatcher ED80 Pro 80mm f7.5 refractor, William Optics 0.8x focal reducer | Mount: Vixen GP-D2, Boxdoerfer PowerFlex MTS-3SLP drive controller | Filters: Baader 2" LRGB Filter Set | Guiding: The Imaging Source DMK 21AU04.AS CCD camera, Teleskop-Service 50mm f4.1 Guidescope, Stark-Labs PHD Guiding | Exposure: L 12x600 (2h) unbinned, CCD @ -25° RGB 8x240s (32m) each binned 2x2, CCD @ -15° Total exposure 3h36m | Software: CCDWare CCDStack, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Stark-Labs Nebulosity 2, GradientXTerminator Plugin | Location: 60°44'00"N 26°12'46"E (Tähtikallio Observatory/Artjärvi, FI) | Image Field: 1.789 x 1.789 degrees | Image Center: Ra 01h33m55s Dec +30°39'16" | Target altitude in the beginning of the exposure 36°