NGC 6503 trials and tribulations

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menardre
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Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:09 pm

NGC 6503 trials and tribulations

Unread post by menardre »

Everyone here on the imagers forum have gone through difficult times. Astrophotography is not easy.

Over the past few months I have been working through rotator issues. I use a Pegasus Falcon electronic rotator during the platesolve process in SGP. This allows me to position the object at the angle I want. This is really important if there are multiple objects in the field of view that you want to frame.

I know that the focuser works since I can command it to any angle either with its own software or through SGP.

I contacted Main Sequence Software concerning the problem. They suggested that I send them a log of an event in which the rotator did not work properly. I told them that I have been using SGP for years and have never had a problem using platesolve or rotator, until I upgraded to ver 4.1 of SGP. They admitted that there were changes in ver 4.1 that impacts rotator. They implemented new ASCOM standards for rotators. I have been using an older version of ASCOM (6.4) and an older version of rotator drivers, so I decided to upgrade ASCOM to latest (6.6) and upgrade the Pegasus Falcon rotator to the new 'Unity' software. I then tested all devices and they still all worked.

Two nights ago I decided to try and image NGC 6503 to try out the new ASCOM and drivers. I picked this because it is an interesting object located in Draco - so it is fairly far from the full Moon. The night started well... platesolve worked on the second attempt including achieving the correct angle to within 1/2 degree. But then later in the night SGP failed to complete a meridian flip, due to rotator problems. So I sent Main Sequence Software the logs for that night. Once again the SGP technician responded and identified a fault in the rotator driver. I then contacted Pegasus. They responded that they knew of the problem and a 'fix' should be available in a few days.

I decided to roll-back my SGP software to version 4.0 since the technician said it should work. So last night I again tried to image NGC 6503 with CPC1100 and ZWO ASI2600 OSC. I started imaging around 9:15 PM and concluded at 4AM. During that time SGP went through a few platesolve iterations including a meridian flip, all unattended and all successful. So I guess I will continue to use SGP ver 4.0 until Pegasus delivers an updated driver.

One thing that I found was both Main Sequence Software and Pegasus respond very quickly (same day) to problems.

NGC 6503 is a field dwarf spiral galaxy in Draco. It is about 13 million light years away. It is sometimes call the 'Lost in Space' galaxy since it is in an empty patch of space called the Local Void. Most galaxies are in galaxy groups.


BTW: I processed the 90 images of the night of June 13 and then combined them to the 190 images I took last night. I was surprised that there was not that much difference between the 90 images and 260 images.

Roger
NGC6503 Master_DBEdiv_EzDN_Autocolor_HDR_MLTsharp_MLT5321_EzSR_Curves_DC.jpg
NGC6503 Master_DBEdiv_EzDN_Autocolor_HDR_MLTsharp_MLT5321_EzSR_Curves_DC.jpg (1000.97 KiB) Viewed 320 times
Roger M.
Celestron CPC1100 EDGE, Stellarvue 130T refractor dual mounted on iOptron CEM120 on permanent pier mounted in Observatory. Imaging camera ZWO ASI2600 OSC, guide camera Lodestar or ZWO ASI290MM.
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Pete
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Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2003 9:03 pm

Re: NGC 6503 trials and tribulations

Unread post by Pete »

Rog, I'm impressed that you were able to get such a clean shot with a full moon. And also grateful to know that I'm not the only one out there who struggles with this technology/art.
Pete P.
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