Theatre Hipparchus

A critical part of the imaging process...

Imaging a galaxy involves taking long exposures of the same object on subsequent nights or weeks. The issue is getting the target in the same position on the imaging chip. Most objects are too dim to see through the eyepiece so you are dependent on the scope pointing exactly where it is supposed to.

From CWD position this is the intitial slew to bright star, in this case Mirfak. Center this and sync to get started. After a few additional aligns on other stars the pointing gets astounding.  I use Focus Max at this point as well.

 I made a small adjustment right after this screen capture was taken to make sure the star is dead center. When you are syncing or model building you should take the time to perfectly center. It will come in handy later on.

 After focus is complete we can head to the target.

Pinpoint is a remarkable viewfinder. Here the center of the image is detemined.

After this set of cordinates are synced, you can use this as a frame of reference. If you have built up a decent model you can use this process to go back to the same object night after night. 

I will try to visually outline the exact process I am using to build a large model.

Messier 81 82

Spectacular galaxies dominate the March imaging calendar. Our first capture involves using the planetarium program Starry Night Pro+ to calculate the angle and position. In this case the CCD has to be turned to 60 degrees. A tight fit.  

Here is the actual image:

SXV H9C 300 minutes Maxim DL, Photoshop

Next stop Messier 51. I kept the same angle for this series and I should be able to stack up about 10 hours for this target.