Ngc-6888, The Crescent Nebula

One of my "main" targets during last few months. First exposures was taken at the end of October so it took more than a month to finalize this one.

The Crescent Nebula (also known as NGC 6888, Caldwell 27, Sharpless 105) is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, about 5000 light-years away. It was discovered by Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel in 1792.[2] It is formed by the fast stellar wind from the Wolf-Rayet star WR 136 (HD 192163) colliding with and energizing the slower moving wind ejected by the star when it became a red giant around 250,000 to 400,000[citation needed] years ago. (wikipedia)

This is a mag 7,4 object. Here's almost 8 hrs of data at HaRGB.

Exposures:
Ha = 3*1800" + 8*1200" (bin1*1)
R = 14*360" (bin2*2)
G = 11*360" (bin2*2)
B = 11*360" (bin2*2)

Full size on Astrobin

NGC-891

NGC 891 (also known as Caldwell 23) is an edge-on unbarred spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. It was discovered by William Herschel on October 6, 1784. The galaxy is a member of the NGC 1023 group of galaxies in the Local Supercluster. It has an H II nucleus. (wikipedia)

Here's only color channels binned 2*2. This was a morning target for few of my imaging sessions so there's no luminance channel, yet. If the weather some day clears I've planned to continue with this one.

Only 2 hr 12 min of rgb here (42:60:30 bin2*2 all).

Draco Trio reprocessed

More reprocessing done!

Here's another one shot in 2013, original post and image can be found here.

Full size on Astrobin

Ngc2685 reprocessed

Had some time to get back to reprocess one of my old images. This was shot in early 2013. (original post here.)

And 100% crop of the galaxy:

Full size on Astrobin

IC356

This was my early-night target before Ngc3184. Unfortunately this drops low pretty fast after darkness so I got only 2-3 hrs of data during a night. And there was only two clear nights...

This galaxy is a relatively nearby, located only 39 million light years away. It's located quite close to IC342 in the constellation Camelopardalis. IC356, also known as Arp213, has a magnitude of 11.39.

Here's 5h 30min of exposure. 

L             = 16 * 900" (bin1*1)

RGB       =  6 * 300" (bin2*2)

Full size in Astrobin.

Ngc3184

At least one image for this season done!!!!

I missed almost two weeks of clear weather mainly because I noticed a minor flexure on my PDF focuser and wanted to fix it right away. Waited to got a longer extension plate to get camera closer to focuser. And I think it helped a bit because I didn't notice any flexure this time.

Here's the Ngc3184, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major. It lies about 40 million light years away and has a magnitude of 10.4.

In the down right part of the image is galaxy cluster Abell 971.

Total exposure is 6 h 40 min.

                              L = 17*900"

                              R = 12*300" (bin2*2)

                              G = 9 *300" (bin2*2)

                              B = 10*300" (bin2*2)

Full size in Astrobin

FINALLY!!! Some imaging done...

This season has been a real nightmare for BBubble Observatory!! As written earlier my Mesu2 broke and after that my FLI PDF focuser failed...

They finally respond to my emails from FLI and requested focuser to be sent back there for repair. Just to send it there would have cost me almost 200€... And basically, the problem was that the motor drive sprocket was loose. So I respond the email and requested help for opening the focuser at home and tightening the drive sprocket, No one from the FLI responded me anymore... So nothing good for me to say on that company!!

So finally I decided to open the focuser despite the warning not to do so in the manual! The whole operation took me about an hour. And the most time I spend was adjusting the focuser to be straight before attaching everything.

So earlier this week there was also a good weather with no moon. First few hours of collimation and then taking images. Imaged three different targets with RGB-filters and managed to collect about 60 min per channel per target.

I Sat down yesterday to process them. All channels was looking pretty good after calibration and then I started to combine them to color images. But what the hell, all stars are white... As well as the nebulosity in the NGC1579, WTF!!!!

Ok, first impression: all different images were taken in the same filter. So is my filter wheel now broken or what!?! During imaging session the filters were changing in the MaximDL and all was ok when I tested the drives after re-installing my PC after its hard drive crash few month ago.

I went inside the observatory and changed the filter from the MaximDL and nothing happened except in the MaximDL camera view, great... I re-powered the camera and noticed that the wheel was testing itself normally, so at least it was not broken!! Started the CCDOPS and tested the filter wheel, all working perfectly! So it must be the MaximDL... Checked filter wheel options, I had selected "CFW-8" because I have 8-slot filter wheel. Selected "standard" and the wheel started to move as it should.

Luckily all the images was taken in the L-filter so now I'm missing only RGB-data!! So here's what I get in the L-Channel:

NGC3184:

NGC2419, The Galactic Wanderer

NGC1579, The Northern Trifid,

Old images reprocessed; M31, M65&M66 and M101

Had some time to study PI and try to reprocess some old ones...

Here's The Andromeda Galaxy, M31. (original post from 2009 here)

Then M65&M66 (original here, from 2010)

And finally M101, The Pinwheel Galaxy (original here, from 2010)

Full size images in Astrobin.

Update for season 2014-2015

There has been quiet times in the BBubble observatory... So here's a short review of what has happened!


Let's go back to August! Darkness was arriving after the Summer and I put everything ready; focuser, camera, mount control box and so on. Powered everyhting up and suddenly the mount started to move in RA-axis faster than it has ever done before (because of the 1,5m scope I've limited the slew speed to 5 deg/sec)... WTF!!!!!!! Ok, power off to prevent any damages. Checked the cabling and tried again with the same result, great.....


Contacted the mount's manufacturer who wanted me to sent the mount so he can fix it. We agreed that I would try to find the failed part because it would be much easier to send and fix that than the whole mount. After dozens of emails and measurements with oscilloscope we find the broken RA-axis encoder. Another part which "has never failed before"...


Manufacturer promised to send me a new one after he gets it. After a week he mailed that the one he got has a broken cover. So we agreed that I'll send mine and he switches that cover to the broken one. And finally after 1,5 months I got my Mesu2 working again. And then the clouds came...


Ok, normal Finnish winter. More than 2 months of cloudiness. Finally some clear skies in December so I could make another polar alignment to my mount (I accidently moved the mount during repair). Done!!


Then collimation and check the straighness of the optical path, Done with less than 1" error. And then more clouds...


Few days later I wondered that my computer in the observatory was offline. The hard disc drive has failed... Ok, easy to change and lost only 30hrs of calibration data. But needed to install every driver again.


In the middle of Janury few moments of clear skies again. Vcurves for the Focusmax and adjusting autoguider settings in the MaximDL.


Next night perfect weather with 0% moon. Started all remotely to and watched how CCDCommander begun its script. Everything connected, dome slaved, mount slewed to focus star, plate solve and recenter and then focus run. Started ok but then reported that on the "wrong side of V-curve"... Focuser reported to be near Home-position when I stopped the script. Moved focuser back to starting position and took a few second image. WTF!!!


There was only donuts in the screen, no stars... Great!! Later that night I drove to the observatory an found my PDF focuser jammed to its outmost position. Closed everything and went to sleep.


So now I'm waiting istructions from the FLI how to repair the PDF. There's propably only a loose screw in the motor drive sprocket but the focuser needs to be opened to tighten it.