Imaging Session – 5th Jan 2022

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WO Z61 and WS Esprit 120

I decided to point both of my telescopes towards IC 1396 The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula for this session and compare a widefield and more magnified set of images.

Setup 1: Esprit 120/ZWO ASI 533 on the SW EQ6R looking at IC 1396 Elephant’s Trunk Nebula.

  • Polar Aligned using QHY Polemaster
  • Set up the target plan in Sequence Generator Pro.
  • Ran Auto Focus – 67661 at HFR 1.9
  • Slew to target, plate solved and started imaging

Managed to get just over 2 hours of data 34 frames at 240sec.

IC 1396 Elephant’s Trunk Nebula

Setup 2: WO Z61/ZWO ASI 183 on the IOptron CEM25P looking at IC 1396 Elephant’s Trunk Nebula

  • Polar Aligned using ASIAir
  • Ran Auto Focus – 3352 at HFR 2.34
  • Set up the target plan in ASIAir taking 120sec exposures.

Even with the signal booster it still struggled to keep a connection (the iPad was inside a conservatory about 10m away), but as it was still working in the background it caught up each time and finished the session.

With the ASIAir I got 1hr 42min data – 51 frames at 120sec.

IC 1396 Elephant’s Trunk Nebula