New Forest Observatory ®

As I have completed the Coma Cluster data to my satisfaction, I went back to look at all the Markarian Chain data I took in 2022 and reprocessed that. This is 48 x 4-minute subs on the Hyperstar 4, and it has a pretty good low-noise background. So I will not be taking any more data on this one this year.

Did the Coma Cluster with the HS4 last nigh, 5 minute subs again, 24 subs in total out of which I chose 17. So together with the data from the 6th that totals 36 x 5-minute subs or 3-hours of total integration time on the HS4 (equivalent to 15-hours of integration time on the Sky90s). The background is MUCH cleaner compared to the single set of data, but it is not glassy smooth like my original 100 subs Hyperstar images. Question is, do I use another night of good imaging just to get a better almost noise-free background, or do I move onto another target like the Markarian Chain to get more data on that one?

I took this data with the Hyperstar on the 6th. I was expecting to get more data last night (7th) but there was tons of thin high cloud. So I cropped the data I got and you can see it above. The only reason I need more data is that the background is a little too noisy. It might be clear tonight in which case you’ll know what I’ll be doing.

A clear Moonless night tonight and I am imaging the Coma Cluster of galaxies (yes that’s the cluster that Zwicky used to infer the existence of Dark Matter way back in the 1930s).

Hyperstar 4 on a C11 with an ASI 2600MC Pro CMOS camera and 5-minute subs. Looks like some thin high cloud on a few of the subs so I hope I get enough to be able to throw those out.

Need to manually rotate the south dome every half hour and on the last venture into the garden I saw a very nice meteor.

Damned computer decided to reboot itself twice before I started the imaging session which slowed things down a bit and I am watching progress on a monitor indoors with bated breath and praying I don’t get another reboot. If I do get another reboot I will call it a night.

I was very fortunate in that the computer didn’t reboot again so I managed to image until 1 a.m. Got 27 x 5-minute subs out of which 19 were good. So as I need a few more subs to get a pretty noise-free background I intend to spend any more imaging nights this month on the same target.

I gave the computer the once over tomorrow, reset the RAM, and it behaved itself all day. So if I get some more clear skies the Coma Cluster it will be.