From: Willie Strickland <cwskas@earthlink.net>

Date: November 1, 2010 1:10:47 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: NGC 7331 and friends..

Beautiful image, Milton.  Did you align, combo and process with AstroIIDC?

I viewed that object last night here in west Texas under quite nice skies, but I didnt attempt any imaging.  Transparency was probably 8-9 of 10 and I was able to split a double with 2.8 arcsec separation quite easily.  I got sky quality meter readings in the range of 21.55-21.61.  I viewed until 3am when some clouds rolled in.

The Eldorado Star Party starts tonight, so last night I was just having fun and making sure everything was ready to go.  Still futzing with the firewire cables and the DMK hoping I can find a combination that works.

NGC7789 was my favorite of the night.  I almost attempted to image it with my Canon, but didnt want to give up the visual observing time.

Willie

On Nov 1, 2010, at 8:32 AM, Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com wrote:

NGC 7331 and friends..

  Posted by: "milton_aupperle" milton@outcastsoft.com milton_aupperle

  Date: Sun Oct 31, 2010 1:58 pm ((PDT))

Hi Folks;

I managed to image the "Deer Lick Galaxy Cluster" centered on NGC 7331:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/DSO/NGC7331_MJA_20101030.jpg 

last night. C8 @ 1150 mm Fl, Astro Don LRGB filters using Cooled Grasshopper with 15 min Luma (1x1 binned) and then binned 2x2 R 6 min, G 4 min and blue 3 min. Total of 2.3 hours of exposures. The image is 1.25 arc seconds per pixel.

I had very stable skies (FWHM 3.5 to 4.5 arc seconds), with fairly dark skies (about 17,000 ADU sky background with 15 minute exposures and a LPR filter) initially. The tracking log and graph were basically "flat" for a change. I had 10 second periods where there were no guiding corrections needed at all, so Astro IIDC was correcting for the mount, not chasing turbulence for a change.

Thin cloud kept drifting in from the west and I cut short my attempt at imaging M74, as it was basically lost in the increasing light pollution / clouds.

TTYL..

Milton Aupperle