First light

At 9.15 pm on the 14th of June 2012 (12 days after receiving the telescope), I achieved my first alignment and got my first guided shots. I had been taking test pictures of the Southern Cross (Crux) or more specifically, the Jewel Box Cluster, NGC 4755, to see if the drift alignment attempts had worked. Finally, the test shot showed stars which were not trails.

Jewel Box Cluster
NGC 4755  in Crux
9:15 pm. June 14th, 2012.
Labrador.
ED 120mm auto-guided.
Canon 550D ISO 800.
1 min x 6.
Just for fun, I lined this image up with the one I took on 1st March 2012 with the Canon 550D and a 50 mm lens.

3 am. March 1st, 2012.
Labrador.
Canon 550D. 50 mm lens f/1.8
ISO 200.
8 sec x 16.

 

Having apparently aligned the system, I turned it onto Eta Carina.

Eta Carina Nebula NGC 3372 in Carina.
9:35 pm. June 14th, 2012.
Labrador.
ED 120mm auto-guided.
Canon 550D ISO 800.
2 min x 6.

This was the image that I emailed to my helpful advisers at Bintel to reassure them that I had decided not to give up amateur astronomy forever as had seemed possible the week before when I could not align the scope. In fact, it was a vastly nicer image than I had expected to be possible on my first evening with the gear properly aligned, especially as my home is half a block from a football stadium and on a major road with street lighting to match!

Not having any covered protection for the system, I dismantled it all and then, next night, re-assembled it all and again tried the drift alignment. It was all good.

Lagoon Nebula M8 in Sagittarius.
8:44 pm. June 15th, 2012. Labrador.
ED 120mm auto-guided.
Canon 550D ISO 800.
2 min x 6.

Once again, the image was pretty enough to compensate for the learning process.  Two nights later I was able to set up the system for the third time and this time, I was fast enough to have time to collect images of two objects.

Omega Centauri in Centaurus .
7:18 pm. June 17th, 2012. Labrador.
ED 120mm auto-guided.
Canon 550D ISO 800.
1 min x 6.

 

 

 Lambda Centauri Cluster in the Running Chicken Nebula.
8:04 pm. June 17th, 2012. Labrador.
ED 120mm auto-guided.
Canon 550D ISO 800.
2 min x 6.

 

 

I had taken an image of Omega Centauri with a 50 mm lens on the Canon 550D,  on March 1st, just after the above image of the Jewel Box Cluster.  It highlights the effect of using the refractor.

3:30 am. March 1st, 2012.
Labrador.
Canon 550D. 50 mm lens f/1.8
ISO 200.
8 sec x 16.

 

 

 

On the following night (June 18th, 2012), I decided the auto-guiding was working so well that I would give it a longer run of 60 minutes guiding taking 6 images of 10 minutes exposure each. To test this out, I chose 2 galaxies, M83 and M104.

 

Southern Pinwheel Galaxy M83 in Hydra.
7:09 pm. June 18th, 2012. Labrador.
ED 120mm auto-guided.
Canon 550D ISO 800.
10 min x 6.

 

Sombrero Galaxy M104 in Virgo.
8:17 pm. June 18th, 2012. Labrador.
ED 120mm auto-guided.
Canon 550D ISO 800.
10 min x 6.

 

 

 

These galaxy images were very encouraging as well.

With the exposure times increased to 10 minutes, I thought it was time I learnt to do “darks” for the computer to subtract during processing. I tried this but the software kept reporting errors in image size. I discussed this problem at the next meeting of the Southern Astronomical Society and it emerged that there was a very good reason for the error messages. All of my images to date had been jpegs ! The procedure of preparing “darks” was not going to work unless I switched to capturing the images as RAW images.

Naturally, I was keen to upgrade my imaging efforts to RAW without delay .. which triggered more widespread rain for 7 days ! “First dark” was going to have to wait for clear skies.