M45 Pleiades

Testing a miniPC attached to my 480mm f6 refractor.

The miniPC ran PHD2 guiding and SharpCap for slewing the mount, plate solving and auto-focusing.

Mount control was with EQMOD.

 

Connected to home network by a long ethernet cable - I was able to watch over things from my iPAD inside the house!

 

240 x 1 minute exposures over 2 nights.

 

Technical Card

480/80mm f/6 Altair Starwave triplet refractor.

Altair Planostar 1.0 x FF with 2 inch IDAS P2 LPS filter

ZWO ASI2600MC; 240 x 60 second subs, Gain 100, Offset 25, Temp = -15c.

 

EQ6 R pro mount with EQMOD control. Primalucelab Sesto Senso electronic focuser.

 

Session control; SharpCap 4.1 on miniPC on scope

Automated plate solving GOTO.

Automated FWHM multistar focusing every 16 frames. +/- 250 steps at 8s and 600 gain.

 

 

60 dark frames

60 flat frames (electroluminescent panel A, 1600ms exposure @ 0 gain).

 

Post processed in PixInsight 1.8.9.

 

Light Pollution and Weather:

SQM (L) =20.2

 

Error measured by PHD2= 15 arc minute.

RA drift + 2.71 arcsec/min

Dec drift - 1.2 arcsec/min

 

Guiding:

PHD2 guiding with ZWO ASI290mm/Altair Starwave 206/50mm guider. Every 15th sub dithered.

RA RMS error 0.89 arcsec

Dec RMS error 0.79 arcsec

 

Astrometry:

Resolution; 1.613 arcsec/px

Rotation; 74.808 deg

Focal distance; 480.86 mm

Pixel size; 3.76 um

Field of view; 2d 5' 59.5" x 1d 33' 24.7"

Image centre;

RA: 3 46 55.070

Dec: +24 07 46.32

Done