This work was done with the latest feature-release version 2.2.1 of AstroDMx Capture.
The equipment comprised a Stella Mira 66 ED APO refractor with a field flattener, an Altair magnetic 2" filter holder with an Altair Quadband filter; a ZWO EAF and a SV405CC OSC 14 bit TEC cooled CMOS camera, using an SVBONY SV165 guide scope with a QHY-5II-M guide camera. The equipment was mounted on a Celestron AVX mount.
As usual, the mount was placed on marks on the ground which quickly gives quite a good polar alignment when care is taken with the placement of the tripod feet.
PHD2 was used for multi-star pulse auto-guiding and was controlled by a separate Linux computer indoors.
AstroDMx Capture captured the data, controlled the mount and the ZWO EAF via an INDI server running on the imaging computer indoors.
AstroDMx Capture was used to send the scope/mount to Altair; with plate-solving to centre the star. AstroDMx Capture then controlled the ZWO EAF via the INDI server to exactly focus the star using a Bahtinov mask.
AstroDMx Capture was used to send the scope/mount to the Eagle nebula, automatically repeatedly plate solve and move until an accuracy of 5 arc-seconds was achieved.
AstroDMx Capture was used to capture 1 hour’s worth of 5 minute exposures of M16, the Eagle nebula.
With negative preview
The data were calibrated, registered, stacked and part processed in Siril; post processed in The Gimp 2.10, Starnet++, Neat image and PhotoScape X Pro.
The nebula was processed with the stars removed so that the stars would not become bloated during stretching.
Starless Eagle nebula
Final image of M16, the Eagle nebula
AstroDMx Capture was used to plate solve and send the mount to the star HD 198330 a star that lies among the Veil nebulae and allowed us to frame the image in the required way. The field of view was automatically repeatedly plate solved and moved until an accuracy of 5 arc-seconds was achieved with HD 198330 dead centre.
AstroDMx Capture was used to capture 1 hour’s worth of 5 minute exposures of the Western Veil nebula and Pickering’s triangle.
With a negative preview
The data were calibrated, registered, stacked and part processed in Siril; post processed in The Gimp 2.10, Starnet++, Neat image and PhotoScape X Pro.
The nebulae were processed with the stars removed.
Starless nebulae
Final image of the Western Veil nebula and Pickering’s triangle
The SVBONY SV405CC camera performed well with the latest version of AtroDMx Capture.
Nicola will be working on PHD integration in AstroDMx Capture to further automate the process of moving the mount to another object or performing an assisted meridian flip.
She will also be working on other aspects as well, and some of them should find themselves in the next feature release.
