7/4/2016 BLM - Comet C/2015WZ and UGC 10491

Not a pretty picture but I really enjoy digging out the faint stuff from this 120sec exposure. I was trying to image this faint and small comet (5.5"), but found a weird shape of fuzzy. Turns out it is a galaxy with interesting shape.

FSQ-85 with 0.76x
SBIG-8300M
120s with L filter
Only process with flat and some stretch...

7/4/2016 BLM - Imaging Veil Ha 4hr

Consider this is my first official night out to image with my CCD. Joined 3 other friends and do an all nigh imaging. The image above is not fully processed yet, will need more NB data. 12 sub, 1200sec each with 7nm Ha filter.

BLM is kind of in the middle of nowhere ...

A couple images of our setups...

There are some bullets on the ground... kind of scary...

Still learning SGP

Jing Wee took several very amazing Milky Way images for me !!

6/5/2016 - First Saturn Image

Seeing was no good and most of my AP friends are at BLM imaging deep sky objects... :-(

I was too tired from the camping trip (company offsite event) so decide to just do something in my front yard. Even feel too tired to move the setup to the backyard !

 Never image Saturn before so still learning...

5/29/2016 SJAA RDCO Private Viewing

Weather has been bad since last year. Finally we have a relative clear weekend.

There are about 20+ scopes there and most of them doing visual.

I take my FC-100 out the first time.
I setup close to Ryan (my friend) who has a very nice 10" Dob.

This is also the first time I use DSC (digital setting circle).
It is like cheating as star-hopping is no need now.
I look at the following objects from 9:30pm to 12:00am.
M3
M53
M64
M80
M107
M84
M86
M87
M88
M91
M100
M85
M59
M60
M58
M90
M89
M49
M61
M99
M98
M51
M63
M94
M101
M106
M4
M9
M12
M10
M5
NCG4762
M19
M62
M57
M56
M29

There is also a 8inch refractor there !!

The sky was OK dark but not very transparent.
I am not sure if I trust the SQM reading from my iPhone.
The milky way is not visible...

First Time at Montebello (M101)

First time to try this local site (Montebello) close to Stanford. About 45min door-to-door from my house. (http://old.observers.org/sites/) The site is not as dark as BLM but it is good enough for me. I decide to go this place more often for narrow-band imaging.

Spent most of the time testing the FSQ-85 + STT-8300. Still struggle on the SGP auto focusing.

The star shape at the corners are not perfect too. This makes me thinking to upgrade to FSQ-106...

Below is one shot of 30min Ha of M101.

Second try on Jupiter + New ASI224 Camera

Got an used ZWO ASI224 camera for planetary imaging.
Finally decided not to use DSLR for this job.

My friends weChat me said the seeing is excellent on 4/1 (I thought it was a April Fool joke) so I only setup the quick one.

The second day (4/2) I setup my 10" to try on Jupiter.

Borrow a 5x Powermate from a friend and get the scope to F25.
Man, it so painful to find the target as I didn't use GoTo.

New on Firecapture too...

 Install a poor-man electric focuser too.

This is the focuser looks like ...

Finally give my small refractor another try. Still cannot get to focus with 5x Powermate...

Add caption

The result is still no good but I think I am getting there... ;-)

Still Learning Planetary Imaging

This Wednesday seems like our only chance of good weather (in fact, Thursday turns out OK too), so I setup on my backyard and do some imaging.

It takes 30min to setup and 25min to tear it down...

The seeing is actually pretty good but my focusing skill sucks.

The result turns out not good.

Need to get an electrical focuser for sure.

Still using DSLR (Canon T3i) with BYEOS. Looks like I might need to invest an webcam or CCD ...