ShahGazer Rambling about Astrophotography, Coding and Clouds

Last night, with the Moon almost full in the east, I was reluctant to do any imaging. However, the sky towards the south became clearer each minute, and having a steady clear sky in my location is very rare. So I fired up my imaging equipments. This is a small planetary nebula in Puppis, NGC 2440. Finding it was easy, using Maxim DL and PinPoint. In fact I am enjoying and more relaxed now when doing imaging, having Maxim DL help me to automate the process and PinPoint assuring me that I am pointing at the correct place! Camera: QHY9 Mono with QHY Filter wheel (RGB) Telescope: SW Equinox 120ED Mount: EQ6 Pro with EQMOD Guiding: Orion 80mm and QHY5 Imaging Software: Maxim DL Processing Software: Maxim DL and PS3 Exposures: L: 6 x 100sec, R: 3 x 60sec, G: 3 x 60sec, B: 3 x 60sec Calibration: Flats (per color) and Darks Dither : 2 pixel per sub

I was following almost step-by-step of processing LRGB images from the Starizona - Guide to ccd imaging , and happily managed to extract some good data from my previous Eta Carina RGB data sets. Combined with the Luminance data, I used R(3 min), G(3 min), B(3 min). The combined method is Median for RGB and Sigma Clip for Luminance. The SNR seems better.

Eta Carinae was barely clearing my rooftop, as it never reaches above 30 degrees from Kuala Lumpur. But, I was please to see the initial results. This is among the first CCD shot and post processing done by me. The learning curve was pretty steep, but then I got a lot of cloudy nights here to force me to learn, read, try and experiment with whatever data I have. The shot was taken on 28th March 2011. Skywatcher 120ED EQ6 QHY9-mono Autoguided by MaximDL and QHY5 Luminance = 11.6 minutes

Finally, my home observatory has finally finished. After about 5 month of construction, the final piece of the puzzle was put in place. I have now a complete solution for an automated imaging observatory. For now, this is a photo of the equipment in place. I will probably do a proper page for this observatory soon. At the moment I am very happy on what I have and can see numerous projects and opportunity when observing from a permanent site.