Wednesday 30 July 2008

Cassie, Andromeda and Perseus and others

I waited till past midnight, the witches come around and turn off 90% of the streetlights, I tested out the timer remote. I set the camera up as normal, 30 seconds, f3.5, ISO800, mirror lockup and 2 second timer. I set the remote timer for 45 second interval (to allow for the 2 second mirror lockup and the post image display), and for 60 repititions. Then hit start, and used the bins for a good look around the same area. It's been a while and I wanted to check if I could remember where things were. I found the double cluster and the Mirfak Assoc easily, although it took me a while to find Andromeda, odd considering how big it is. I also saw 3 satellites pass over in differing directions at the same time and a streaker off to the south. Of course, a thin strand of cloud started to wander in just to spoil my captures, but I got 37 of the 60 I'd set out for, giving me some 19.5 min exposure. Stacked in DSS, it took a while. I then loaded the autosave.tif (instead of the one I saved) as this is a 32bit image. Then converting it to 16bit allows for some adjustments, and I boosted the exposure a little and reduced the gamma. Cropped it to get rid of the weird smearing in top right and bottom left corners. Gradx to start, then levels to get rid of the ends with no data in, curves to lighten, and boost contrast. NC's lp removal, more curves to lighten and boost contrast, and I ended up with this

Photobucket

The Mirfak Association, the Perseus Double and M31 are clear in there. I've kinda got lost in what I can see. I'm sure there's an M or 2 in Cassiopeia in there as well and no doubt other objects too.

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