Friday, October 28, 2016

Mount repaired - back to imaging!

I finally got my mount issues resolved (at least most of the way).  I know for a fact that I am overloading my mount with equipment and that is the basic reason for its failure to track adequately at the prime focus focal lengths.

However, after rebuilding the mount and re-routing the cabling I am now able to use the wide field camera.  I anticipate getting the longer focal lengths to work as well, but having the wide field Hyperstar operational is a big plus.

So here is the first image since the mount starting having problems back in August:

IC 1805 - The Heart Nebula
EdgeHD11 w/Hyperstar;  QHY10 Camera
October 24, 2016  30x120sec

The Heart Nebula, IC 1805, Sharpless 2-190, lies some 7500 light years away from Earth and is located in the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. This is an emission nebula showing glowing ionized hydrogen gas and darker dust lanes.

The very brightest part of this nebula (the knot at the top right) is separately classified as NGC 896, because it was the first part of this nebula to be discovered.

The nebula's intense red output and its configuration are driven by the radiation emanating from a small group of stars near the nebula's center. This open cluster of stars known as Melotte 15 contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, and many more dim stars that are only a fraction of our Sun's mass.
Wikipedia

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