First night of 2011 is crystal clear and cold (avg 12F) here at Clearfield Observatory. Not just the first night of the year, its also first light for a new QSI 583ws camera. So its frickin cold as hell while I’m trying new hardware and techniques. A challenge, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
The night went very well, thank you. Focusing with my homemade Bahtinov mask for the first time: amazingly easy. Testing shows the color filters (AstroDon TruBalance ) have a slight difference in focus among them, not unexpected. Finding and framing target without a camera viewfinder: not as bad as I thought. This is good since I don’t have a goto mount and finding/framing can be tedious.
After the initial test images I did one hour of exposures ( 21 x 3m) on Barnard 33, luminance only (click image for 100% zoom of horse head):
Combined in Maxim DL, just darks and lights, no flats. Minimal photoshop work, no noise reduction. Very pleased with these results!