This tends to be a “Holy Grail” kind of topic. I have experienced far too many evenings where I have imaged for hours, but the sky glow corrupted the images so badly that they were not usable. I end up asking myself, “Would a longer exposure have been a better choice?” or “Was this just a night to keep the telescope in the house? I decided that I need to research this subject more. I have read lots about “swamping the Read Noise,” which sounds like a good scheme. If…
Category: Imaging
First Light with an O III Filter
When I bought my first Telescope in 2011 I also bought a BAADER O III filter(10nm) and Light Polution Filter. I had never tried out the O III filter until a few nights ago. The moon was full so I would typical avoid deep sky objects. I decide to try the O III filter because it is a narrowband filter. I decided to image the Crescent Nebula with my 8″ EdgeHD scope at F10 (2032mm FL). I had previously imaged this nebula a few weeks ago using my OPTOLONG L-eNhance…
Adding an Off-Axis Guider to my Set-up
I finally decided to purchase an Off-Axis Guider (OAG) for my astrophotography set-up. Even though I am a QHY camera guy, I decided to purchase a ZWO OAG. The ZWO OAG is is a little less money than the QHYOAG-M and the ZWO OAG has the ability to easily rotate the camera…within limits. I also decided to buy a new guide camera. I chose the QHY5L-II-M because I have written lots of software that uses the QHYCCD.dll to access my cameras so I didn’t want to start over using a…
CaLIGHTs Version 3.1.7.00 released
Release Notes Latest Revision 3.1.7.00Image Preview You can now use the PgUp and PgDn buttons to switch back and forth between image previews. Image Preview I have added a new feature called Shift HFD Rnd Angle. This feature performs analysis of your displayed LIGHT frame. It will make a copy of your LIGHT frame and then analyze the stars in your LIGHT frame. The results of the analysis are used to modify the copy of your LIGHT frame and also to display the results in the title of the image.…
Star Eccentricity and Guiding Accuracy
The Pix Insight documentation specifies that most people would consider a star to be round when the Star Eccentricity is less than 0.42. The equation for Star Eccentricity is a bit convoluted but a star eccentricity 0f 0.42 is also equivalent to a Star Aspect Ratio of 0.91 or a Star Flatness of 0.10. I have chosen to have CaLIGHTs calculate what I call Star Roundness(%) which equals the Star Aspect Ratio multiplied by 100. So a CaLIGHTs Roundness value of 91% equals a Pix Insight Star Eccentricity of 0.42.…