Birthday Clear Skies

Monday was my birthday and as a present the skies cleared.

Only drawback was that we were due to go round to the daughter’s house for tea and cake. (She lives alone and we’re in a support bubble with her so this is OK under COVID-19 regulations). Luckily I have a VPN and I talk to my observatory computer using Remote Desktop so as long as I can get away with taking a laptop with me I’m sorted.

Monday the moon was in Gemini and near full. The seeing wasn’t predicted to be great but there was little cloud cover forecast.

My setup was more or less working with the exception of the dew heater and focuser. Since these use the same board I suspect it’s a power issue but it was too late to fix them.

I decided to risk it without dew heaters and given the temperature I’m amazed I didn’t get ice forming on the lenses.

I was using my Explore Scientific ED80APO and my 183C Hypercam with PHD2 guiding.

I managed to capture about 2 1/2 hours of light on M42. A combination of 5 minute, 2 minute and 1 minute subs. I’m quite pleased with the result.

ES ED80APO, HEQ5 – Guided. 10x300s, 28x120s, 18x60s. Total exp. 2hr6mins
ES ED80APO, HEQ5 – Guided. 10x300s, 28x120s, 18x60s. Total exp. 2hr6mins

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