Leo Triplet 2015

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AndyG
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Leo Triplet 2015

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I have been trying to do some imaging over the past several weeks. The sky conditions have been pretty lousy--poor seeing and transparency. I really had to wrestle with the data to get this image. I think it came out a little better than my last attempt.

(click image for higher resolution images and acquisition info)

Image
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Pete
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Re: Leo Triplet 2015

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OK, I've just gotta ask. How do you duplicate the same FOV over 5 nights?

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Re: Leo Triplet 2015

Unread post by Bruce D »

Another beautiful image Andy, and of one of my favorites! Nice work!
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DonB
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Re: Leo Triplet 2015

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Just beautiful Andy ! Your images are special, thanks for sharing. 8) 8) 8)

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AndyG
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Re: Leo Triplet 2015

Unread post by AndyG »

Thanks, guys!
Pete wrote:OK, I've just gotta ask. How do you duplicate the same FOV over 5 nights?
Pete, the target framing is automated by my camera control program, Sequence Generator Pro. The program uses plate solving to precisely center the image coordinates at the start of each imaging run. The plate solving programs are Elbrus and astrometry.net + ansvr, all free software.

I can literally just turn on the gear and press "Start" and the program automatically takes care of the image centering, focusing, meridian flips, filter changes, starting and stopping the guiding program (PHD2), everything. It's great.
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Pete
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Re: Leo Triplet 2015

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Wow! You've really got that computer dancing Andy. One of my constraints is that my SBIG ST-8XME camera was chosen as optimum for sensitivity and chip size and pixel size rather than software. And the ST-8's is integrated with SBIG's AO unit - something that's really needed at long focal lengths. The CCDSoft software is very good but it's tightly integrated with SBIG's The Sky 6 Pro. Sky 6 in turn plugs into my LX200, resulting in positional data being written to the FITS images (which speeds up astrometrical work enormously). And Sky 6 also compensates for guiding in different areas of the sky without the need to recalibrate. The bad news is that Sky 6 doesn't play well with others. Theoretically several ASCOM programs can run on the same feed but Sky 6 either crashes or causes the other ASCOM program to crash. It's amazing how much of this advanced "astronomy" comes down to software and computers. :cry:

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AndyG
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Re: Leo Triplet 2015

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Thanks, Pete. Well, your software setup seems to be serving you quite well based on your highly productive astrometric work. Just curious, does The Sky 6 Pro use an ASCOM driver connection to the mount, or direct software connection using an internal driver? If it allows connecting to ASCOM mounts, then you can use an ASCOM "hub" to allow several programs to connect simultaneously.
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Re: Leo Triplet 2015

Unread post by mrgizmo65 »

Andy that is a great shot . The structure detail is well defined and should be on the cover of S and T. Jerry
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Pete
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Re: Leo Triplet 2015

Unread post by Pete »

AndyG wrote:Just curious, does The Sky 6 Pro use an ASCOM driver connection to the mount, or direct software connection using an internal driver? If it allows connecting to ASCOM mounts, then you can use an ASCOM "hub" to allow several programs to connect simultaneously.
Andy, The Sky 6 Pro uses a serial connection to the LX200 scopes. In the setup one doesn't select ASCOM, but rather a particular telescope model for connection. For example one may choose Meade Autostar 200, Paramount ME by Software Bisque, Gemini by Losmandy, etc. There is no ASCOM choice. My particular problem is that most of us doing Astrometry use Guide 9 for keeping track of asteroids and not The Sky 6 Pro. And while Guide 9 has ASCOM telescope slew capability it can't be used while Sky 6 is connected to the telescope.

The trade-off is that instead of using Guide 9 to slew to the asteroid (and subsequently have to disconnect Guide 9 and reconnect Sky 6) I just enter the new coordinates manually from the scope's hand control. For the work I'm doing Sky is a great help not to have to recalibrate the guiding of the scope & AO each time I've slewed to a different part of the sky, and also a great help to have the RA & DEC in the FITS image so that they're automatically used by Astrometrica (the Astrometry software that's also pretty much used universally by folks tracking asteroids & comets) ....rather than have to type in the RA & DEC to effect a plate solve with every iteration.

Your plate solve software looks very neat, and I do wish I were able to automatically run a plate solve to correct slews so the asteroids are precisely centered automatically with a correcting nudge. But then again, with The Sky being so tightly integrated with the camera.

One good possibility is that since SBIG's been bought out by Maxim DL, Maxim might eventually program the setup to integrate the cameras with Maxim's own very excellent control software.

Ah well, thanks for your input Andy.

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AndyG
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Re: Leo Triplet 2015

Unread post by AndyG »

Pete wrote:
The Sky 6 Pro uses a serial connection to the LX200 scopes. In the setup one doesn't select ASCOM, but rather a particular telescope model for connection. For example one may choose Meade Autostar 200, Paramount ME by Software Bisque, Gemini by Losmandy, etc. There is no ASCOM choice. My particular problem is that most of us doing Astrometry use Guide 9 for keeping track of asteroids and not The Sky 6 Pro. And while Guide 9 has ASCOM telescope slew capability it can't be used while Sky 6 is connected to the telescope.
There may be a way-- have you tried these instructions: http://ascom-standards.org/FAQs/TheSky.htm
Pete wrote: I do wish I were able to automatically run a plate solve to correct slews so the asteroids are precisely centered automatically with a correcting nudge.
AstroTortilla (free) can also do that. If you can get the ASCOM connection to the mount you may be able to use AstroTortilla. Just a thought.

Andy
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