AstroDMx Capture with an SV605CC and an Altair Starwave 60ED doublet refractor with field-flattener and dew heater strip.
The equipment was mounted on a Celestron AVX GOTO mount. An SVBONY SV165 guide-scope fitted with a QHY-5II-M guide camera was mounted on the imaging scope. A Raspberry Pi computer running an INDI server was connected to the hand controller and communicated with the indoor computer running AstroDMx Capture via WiFi. The guide camera was connected by USB to the indoors computer running PHD2 auto-guiding software. An Altair 2” magnetic filter holder version 2 containing an LeNhance narrowband filter was placed in the optical train.
The AVX mount was placed on the usual marks on the concrete base. The mount was turned on and AstroDMx Capture passed the time, location and altitude coordinates to the hand controller via the INDI server. The hand controller which now contained all of the correct information was set to its previous alignment and was unparked by AstroDMx Capture.
AstroDMx Capture connected the SV605CC OSC camera, set the camera temperature to -10 degrees C and sent the scope/mount to Deneb. AstroDMX Capture plate solved the field and centred Deneb in the field of view. A Bahtinov mask was placed on the imaging scope and Deneb was brought to focus.
The Bahtinov mask was removed and AstroDMx Capture sent the scope/mount to the Pelican nebula, plate solved and centred the Pelican Nebula.
PHD2 was used for autoguiding.
AstroDMx Capture was used to capture 20 x 3 min FITS exposures of the Pelican nebula.
The imaging computer indoors
The sub frames were stacked and part processed in Deep Sky Stacker and post processed in the Gimp 2.10 and Neat Image.
The Pelican nebula
The image of the Pelican nebula was combined with the image of the North America nebula from the previous imaging session using Microsoft ICE
AstroDMx Capture was then used to send the scope/mount to the open cluster M29 in Cygnus, plate solve the field and centre M29
AstroDMx Capture was used to capture just 3 x 5 min FITS exposures of M29 and surrounding nebulosity before the imaging session was terminated by clouds.
The sub-frames were stacked and part processed in Deep sky stacker and post processed in the Gimp2.10 and Neat image.
M29 and surrounding nebulosity
AstroDMx Capture performed flawlessly in this experiment that involved no star alignments or eyepiece work. The whole imaging session was conducted from indoors.
This session again brings closer a release of AstroDMx Capture with advanced functionality.
