Monday, December 29, 2014

MORE Guiding Woes

What a maddening hobby!   Same problem.

Here was my plan from last time:

Things to try:

1)  Disassemble the dual-saddle and tighten everything down.  DONE

2)  Do another polar alignment.  DONE

3)  MOVE both the camera and guidescope to one side. Couldn't do it.  Switched Camera and Scope poistions. 

4)  ADD more weight on top by adding maybe another camera. Used a different camera dovetail which was twice as heavy. 

5)  Cover the connection of the USB-Serial module w/hand warmers.   Maybe the
electronics are getting too cold???  DUMB IDEA.

Same results.  

I also tightened the DEC and RA Gear mesh according to AP's instructions and the guiding is worse by a long shot (went from .6" RMS to 1.8").  The lines are spiky and my total RMS is around 1.8" which is on the crappy side of "okay".

In any event...   Tired of gathering bad data, I also went to the Pyramid 13.8volt power supply wondering if the cold 10 degree temps were crippling the voltage from the Optima battery.   

I'm collecting 30 min shots of the Spaghetti Nebula.   Just trying a different part of the sky and more time.


I just don't get it.



[Later.....]    Still have lines corresponding with R.A.    I collected a bunch of data with the Tak102 at 15 min.    It could be that the system only works with some minimum weight like 15 lbs.   I don't believe it, but I need to verify it tonight.

Later.....]    >sigh<  Another failed night of imaging.   Tried to test the Tak by doing a 20min exposure, but just got a bizarre star trailing pic.    The darn rotator on the collar wasn't locked down and the telescope turned for the 20 min exposure.   PLUS the scope slipped down from its rings.    Holy crap.    Or just crap.

[Even Later...]  The more I think about it, the more I think that it's flex in the system -- specifically in the extremely longish refractor assembly which required a tube extension to get the autoguider to focus.   I can test this tomorrow night.  

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Guiding Frustration...

So, I just took 9 fifteen minute subs of the Angelfish in H-alpha.   But they show small amounts of trailing.   The five minute test was completely fine.   I stopped guiding and tightened everything down -- especially the Dec and RA lockdown finger screws.

The trailing appears up and down generally in a N-S direction which I think corresponds to Declination.

I'm waiting for a test exposure.  If it shows the same trailing, I may try guiding only in one direction for DEC.

It could be the camera mount.    I just don't know of a better way to secure that stupid camera mount. There's so much opportunity for slippage with that single 1/4-20 bolt/screw.

[Little later...]  Still trailing, but appears slightly (25%?)  less.   I just swtiched to Dec corrections only in the South.   If that helps even more then maybe that points to DEC backlash?

Also, this could be all differential flex.   I'm using a dual-saddle configuration, guiding with a  80mm refractor on one side and the camera on the other.

What's weird is that I'm not having these problems with the Tak102 and a guidescope which weighs like twice as much.   That makes me think there's flex in this system somewhere.

[Little later...]   It's 9 degrees outside.   My ass is cold.   Literally.

The last sub had some trailing -- better than before, but still....    ARGH!!!!

I initiated the Meridian flip, re-focused (not sure I did a good job as my fingers were frozen),
re-calibrated PHD and started another run of 15 min subs.

[End of the session...]   Guiding went to crap at around 3 arc sec RMS.   Still showing that weird vertical guiding error.

Things to try:

1)  Disassemble the dual-saddle and tighten everything down.

2)  Do another polar alignment.

3)  MOVE both the camera and guidescope to one side.

4)  ADD more weight on top by adding maybe another camera.

5)  Cover the connection of the USB-Serial module w/hand warmers.   Maybe the
electronics are getting too cold???


So frustrating.....  :(


Thursday, December 25, 2014

Preliminary Angelfish

Only about 2 hours of data.....


Adding more data tonight...   >sigh<

 

(5 years later:  Uh...  what camera?   what mount?   what filter?  what settings? >sigh<)

Thwarted By Christmas.....LIGHT POLLUTION

So, betwixt the howling winds and numerous cloudy fronts, I've been trying to shoot some targets on my to-do list.  One of those objects is a large, faint structure known as the "Angel".   I last tried back in February, but I didn't realize how faint the structure was.   In the meanwhile, I figured that if I hit it with maybe 70-80 subexposures, I'd get something decent.

So I started taking exposures in the early morning hours of the 24th.  Unlike the night of the 22nd, it was a calm, decent night with okay transparency and seeing.   I shot about 24 frames at F/4, 1600 ISO, 600 sec -- all through the 135mm lens.

After stacking the images and having a preliminary look, I discovered a problem I dreaded:  a light pollution gradient !!!     Normally, light pollution isn't much of an issue unless you're shooting directly over the neighbor's houses.   But starting about a week ago, everyone had their Christmas lights on.   The neighbors to one side (directly under my target) have strung a bunch of lights in their front yard.   After letting my eyes get dark adjusted, I could see the air glowing above their house -- presumably from all the moisture.  It really didn't occur to me until I started shooting that it would be an issue.  The 135mm lens has a hefty, solid metal lens shield that extends about 3 inches out from the front of the lens.   But it didn't matter.


The image has been heavily stretched in Photoshop to bring out the faint nebulosity.

Most of the subexposures for this image were about 40-60 degrees up in the air.   Yet the left-hand side which corresponds to the ground is swamped with light pollution.

Here's a negative version to see the structure with a little more contrast:



So, I thought about getting a light pollution filter, but I think the better option is to simply wait 3 weeks and start shooting after the lights are down.

BOO for Christmas light pollution!  

....a little while later:  

I wanted to note that during the night the exposures started showing a slight oblong shape to the stars.  The guiding was perfect so I attribute it to some sort of flex.   Last Feb when I tried shooting this on the Orion Sirius mount, I had the same problem.  

This last time, when I brought the camera in, I noticed that the locking knobs that hold down the dovetail were slightly loose.    I assumed it was just the locking screw that holds the camera down, but it may be a combination of things.

Note to self:   Cinch down everything really tight AFTER slewing the scope AND BEFORE starting another run.



Monday, December 22, 2014

More Problems (Notes to Myself)

Just so I can remember how to move the alt-az knobs on the mount when doing the DSLR iterative method of polar alignment.....

When the scope is pointed to the south and you're doing the "left button, then right button thing" with the hand pad, then the following holds true:

If the line ends on the RIGHT or ABOVE the initial line, then loosen the Left Knob.

And if the line ends on the LEFT or BELOW the initial line, then loosen the RIGHT KNOB.

WHEN THE SCOPE IS SOUTH:   Basically, loosen the knob opposite the direction of the end line of the V.


When the scope is pointed to the east and you're doing the left/right button thing,
then the following holds true:

If the line is to the RIGHT or ABOVE the initial line, then you must TIGHTEN (push up)
the altitude.

If the line is the LEFT or BELOW the initial line, then you must LOOSEN (or drop) the altitude.

WHEN THE SCOPE IS EAST:  Basically, left is loosen, right is tight.


--------------------------

I confirmed the finicky behavior of PHD2 and BYEOS when setting up dithering.   When I tried to enable the server in PHD2 and connect both the mount and QHY5L-II, the system basically crashed.
All my devices became a problem.   Had to restart the computer to get everything going again.

SO.....  the procedure is with a clean taskbar (NO OTHER OPEN APPS) open PHD2 and enable server.   DO NOTHING ELSE and close PHD2.

Then re-open PHD2 and connect ONLY the camera.   Start a looping 2 sec (or whatever) feed from the autoguider, wait to get some images, then hit STOP.   Connect the mount, then re-start the loop.  And you can begin calibration.

The dithering was fine via BYEOS.

When I tried Sequence Generator Pro I tried to dither, but it was out of SYNC so that after a run of 2 minute images, PHD2 would show crazy dec corrections.  But before any settling could take place, SGP would start another exposure.    Bad.

As far as SGP auto-focus, I got it to work better but I wasn't really confident I was getting the best focus possible.   Part of the problem was that I couldn't find a really good exposure to let the autofocus do it's thing.   When I set it to 6400 ISO and 1-2 seconds, the autofocus routine would start identifying all the noise as stars and it often thought that first focus was the best.   >SIGH<   When it showed images, it was obvious that the stars were out of focus.

It took me awhile (a long while) to discover an exposure combination that allowed the auto focus to work.  I seemed to get close with 1600 ISO and 10 seconds while increasing the nebula rejection setting to about 1/3.....  this worked okay.   Oh yeah, step size of 3 and choosing 9 data points.  AND your focus has to be close in the first place.

----------------------------

The nice thing is I was able to get better guiding with PHD2 in terms of aggressiveness and min movement settings.   It seemed the best guiding occurred when Dec corrections  were only happening in one direction.   The RA oscillation seemed to almost get cut in half.   But I'm not sure this works with dithering.


Anyways, so I'm faced with a very dissatisfying first encounter with SGP and auto-focusing.   I've spent two nights trying to get things working and I feel like I need more time to tinker, but I also feel like I'm wasting precious imaging time.




Sunday, December 21, 2014

Problems with SGP and Autofocus

What else is new?  Tried to go out and run Sequence Generator Pro with Autofocus and while I could get autofocus to function, it often shot past best focus and gave me out-of-focus stars.   I tried for about an hour before I gave up.   I can't figure out if it's some backlash issue or something else.

Overall, I felt I wasted time.   But not really.  I'll have to go out and try again.

I did have some success in getting better guiding in PHD2...that is, until I tried to Polar align
and had the scope bang against the pier really hard.   WHAT THE HELL!   Infuriating that
I didn't react quickly enough when I saw the scope heading towards the pier.

Up until that point, I was getting the best guiding I'd ever seen with RA aggressiveness set to .7 and Dec aggressiveness at .65.   I was getting a total RMS in the .6 to.8 range consistently.

After banging the scope, I'm pretty sure I knocked polar alignment out of whack AND probably introduced some extra gear mesh issues.   DAMN!   I had spent about an hour getting that
polar alignment nailed.   RA guiding went to crap and I had crazy oscillation numbers up to 1.1
in PHD2.

Next time, I need to really get the right angle polar alignment scope configured so I cut down on these 1-2 hour polar alignment routines.

I suspect I'll need to remesh RA and possibly DEC.

I want to have a go at the Angel Nebula (IFN) which is North of M81/82.   Looking at my preliminary pics, I believe I need to center the image on NGC 3343 (or NGC 3348) using the 135mm lens and the Canon T3i.    I believe I need to collect about 75 x 15 min exposures which will be a 5 night affair.

I think I can start exposing at 12:30.   If I'm smart, I can start the evening shooting the Angelfish Nebula (Meissa) over those same nights.

As I don't have a provision for autofocusing that lens, I'll need to do this manually.  Ugh.



Thursday, December 18, 2014

M42... Required Image

So I've been taking pics of this nebula since I started astrophotgraphy sometime in the late 80's.  Back then, I was using a 8 inch Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain that my mom bought for me.   (Well, I asked and she okay'd it.)   Astrophotography was done with film and there were many choices.   Invariably, the results were blurry smears of red.  Guiding was done through a finder scope with a reticle eyepiece.  I shot many rolls of film, but nothing really came out to my satisfaction.

I didn't realize at the time that guiding a 2000mm focal length scope through a 60mm guidescope was never going to really work.  I tried lots of combinations, but the end result was always disappointing.

Anyhow, fast forward 25 years and I got this image of M42, the Orion Nebula, and NGC 1977, the Running Man nebula.



I had to devote several nights to getting the exposures to make this image.   This was shot on the nights of Nov 24, 25, 30, then Dec 14 and 15.   I used 31 x 15 min exposures, 46 x 5 min exposures, 35 x 2 min exposures, 35 x 15 seconds, and 35 x 5 seconds.   That's about 13 hours of exposure.  I actually shot about 17 hours of total exposure, but I only used the best 80% of the shots to process the image.   Scope:  Takahashi TSA102S w/Televue .8x focal reducer/flattener.  Mount:  Used AP1200.   Misc:   Guided w/Orion 50mm guidescope and QHY5II-L autoguider.

It's kind of a mandatory shot for any astrophotographer, but I wanted to do it because I knew I would get something worthwhile as it's so bright.

There are issues with the image.    The darker dust structures around the edges of the brightest parts are noisy.   I got those structures from those longer 15 min subexposures, but I think I need like 3-4 times the number of 15 minute exposure which means another 3+ nights of imaging this object.   Getting extra 15 minute shots would increase the signal-to-noise ratio which translates into less noise and more structure.

I was sorta lazy with using layer masks (a technique in Photoshop) and some of the stars are not the right brightness (too large) relative to other stars.

Sharpness is an issue.   Overall, I think the image is a little blurry - except near the core of the Orion nebula where the Trapezium is located (the tiny grouping of 4 stars near the center).   And that Trapezium is weirdly detailed with respect to everything else.

The overall color is little garish to me.   I know this object gets overly saturated by most people and I ended up doing the same thing.

Also, there is some curvature in all the corners, but most obviously in the upper right and left respectively.   I've known about this for awhile, but I haven't bothered to address it.  *I think* it's focuser tilt as the curvature seems to be different depending on the orientation of the camera.  I also picked up some spacers to place between the flattener and the camera.   More crap to address.

If you look closely to the bottom edge, just to the right of the center you can see some artifacts from the constant parade of satellites I had to deal with.   Actually the satellites aren't moving, there's a bunch of geostationary satellites that happen to be located in M42

Overall, to me, it's a "meh."   But I'm glad I did it.


Monday, December 15, 2014

Just another note to myself...


So, I've been collecting data on M42, the Orion Nebula.   I got 3 days toward
the end of November.   Got around 30-35 frames at 15 minutes, 30 frames at 5 minutes.
Tonight (night of 12/14) I got another 12 frames at 5 minutes with Orion in a
better part of the sky.   Then got about 40 frames at 15 seconds, then 40 frames
at 2 minutes.   I noticed that the 15 second frames were still blowing out the
Trapezium so I added 40 frames at 5 seconds.   Lots of the 5 sec shots showed odd
shaped stars -- with slight elongation.  But it was sorta random so I attribute it
to seeing.

I've been working on the used AP1200 mount and it seems less accurate than
the AP900.   PHD2 does so many more corrections to keep the target in its sights.

I decided to try a different setting for Dec corrections.   In PHD2's settings, I had set
the Dec correction to "Resist Switch" which in previous trips has resulted in
really crappy Dec corrections -- there are occasional elongated stars that I believe
are the result of crazy Dec movements.

So, I changed the settings to "Hysteresis" in the hopes of better Dec corrections.

Earlier I polar aligned and spent a lot more time getting the "east" or Dec alignment
solid with 250 second correction using the "iterative method".

And I spent some time re-seating the legs of the pier.   I had brought out a level
and discovered that the legs were really out of kilter.   I wondered if this was
responsible for the poor guiding.

Another new thing was going with a different connection between the autoguider and the mount.
Instead of using the standard ST-4 port connected to the autoguider camera, I went
through a USB-to-Serial interface, then to the RS-232 port of the mount.   I dunno.

After doing some test autoguides, it might have been better.  The RA guiding did
seem better, but the Dec guiding was still giving me some fits.   Overall it might have
been better.   It's hard to say.   Except that I never lost the guide star.

In any event, guiding through the RS-232 connection worked and I'll probably stick with it.

I was done with the Orion shots around 1:30 AM when the moon made it's appearance.

I decided to try to image the Cone nebula using Dithering.   Man, I just had problems.

The procedure of getting dithering going involves turning on the server in PHD2,
shutting PHD2 down, then restarting PHD2 and going about calibrating as usual.

What I found was that PHD2 would often just hang after connecting to the camera
and mount.   What gives?   I would have to CTRL-ALT-DEL to shut down the program
and the Astro-Physics driver which controls the mount.

I tried multiple different approaches.    At one point, the QHY5L-II guider wasn't
even showing a red light.   I'd have to unplug it and replug it in.   Sometimes that would
allow the camera to show up, but other times, the camera just wasn't cooperating.
Troubleshooting this crap with 20 degree temps and freezing hands is a pain in the ass.

Turned off and on the computer.   Same problems.

At one point, my computer decided to hang.

Was it the 18 degree weather?

So, I began to be methodical and stumbled upon one instance of success.

After restarting the computer (yet again), I opened PHD2 and made sure I only connected
the camera so I could see an image.   *I think* I stopped the camera, then selected a star
on the image, then I connected the mount, restarted the 2 sec images.   Then I stopped,
disconnected, enabled the server, then shut down.   *I think* I opened PHD2 again, then
started JUST THE CAMERA to see if I could get an image.   Then hit stop, then connected
the mount (a slight delay occurs), then restarted the 2 sec images with SUCCESS.   I was
then able to calibrate and begin guiding.   IT WAS ONLY THEN that I started Backyard EOS.
And after loading a profile of 60 sec shots, it worked!

Earlier, I had been connecting both the camera and mount at the same time when starting PHD2.
And this leads to a hang.

Also, I had been trying PHD2 with Backyard EOS loaded in the background.   I think this causes problems because PHD2 wants BYE wants to communicate with PHD2 before it's ready.

I'm not sure if I found a way to make it work OR the system just randomly decided to work one time.

It seems like if PHD2 hangs, then I need to restart the computer which is a pain.

We'll see next time.  I want to try to exclusively use Dithering.






Saturday, December 13, 2014

Just a reminder to myself to align the guider camera so the X and Y-axis are lined up with
the arrows on the keypad.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ap-ug/conversations/topics/58067


https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ap-gto/conversations/messages/33545


Notes on gear mesh tightening:  https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ap-ug/conversations/topics/56741

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Notes about Ground Loop (boring entry)

I want to describe a problem I had with the mount and computer setup and a problematic "buzzing" sound.  I wanted to post this to remind myself of my trouble-shooting and to give folks a sense of the
technical problems that seem to regularly plague astro-photographers.

About a week ago, I connected the "big" AP mount to a 13.8 volt power supply, then connected the computer and dew heater to a 12 volt AGM battery via the 600 watt PowerBright inverter.    I instantly heard a buzzing sound from the hand controller.  It's not a sound I had ever heard before.
It wasn't especially loud, but it was loud enough to hear from about 2 feet away.

I re-seated the connection to the power supply a few times with no change.   I slewed the
the mount around and everything seemed fine.   So, I proceeded to set up for a night of
imaging.

One thing I noticed immediately was that the trackpad on the laptop was working erratically.
I couldn't move the mouse cursor anywhere but up and down.    This is a problem I had
on the second night of our recent Van Vleck trip.  My solution was to simply plug in a mouse.
(Need to order a rugged mouse.)

On this particular night, temps were in the mid-20's F.   And I had to battle a 5-30 mph wind
so it felt much colder.   I wondered if temps were affecting electronics -- though at Van Vleck,
the temps rarely were generally higher in the mid-30's and there was little wind.  Why would
I see this problem at both VV and home under different conditions?

I finally had polar alignment and started to do a test track using the Tak102 and the Orion 50mm guider.   The first test guiding session with PHD2 was perfect.  I guess since I was having so
many little issues I wanted to make sure things were fine.    Feeling confident, I centered the target
in Focus/Framing mode in Backyard EOS and started to re-calibrate the guide.

Normally, PHD2 goes through this routine where it does a bunch of North and South "steps"
to calibrate itself in one axis, then moves to the East-West "steps" to calibrate the other axis.
A good calibration generally takes about 15-20 steps in one direction before returning by going back the way it came.   There can be problems when the calibration takes 40+ steps or too few steps.

PHD2 guided the mount 2 steps North, then returned.  Then it guided 2-3 steps West before it finished calibration.  The whole process normally take 2-5 minutes.    It finished in 5-10 seconds.
Uh...    What?    In addition, I kept hearing "clicking sounds" from the mount.   Not good.

So, my first course of action was to stop or "quit" PHD2 on the computer.   Waiting, waiting,
waiting...    I ctrl-alt-del'ed...    Waiting.   I finally "Task End"ed twice before it shut down.
I've had random weird stuff happen via PHD2 before and usually quitting and starting back
up has fixed the issue.   But this time, PHD2 wouldn't even connect to the camera -- PHD2 was
stuck.   So, I ctrl-alt-del'ed.   Closed all programs ....waiting....Backyard EOS is not closing either.
I decided to power down the camera, unplug the usb cables, then shut everything down, then
turned off the computer.   Is this a problem with temps?

For good measure, I unplugged/reseated the power.  And I tried a different socket on the 600 watt inverter.   Just to be sure, I disconnected any connection between the mount and the computer.  The buzzing sound continued to present itself without any connection to the computer.

Reconnected.  Fired everthing back up.   Same behavior.   During calibration, I watched the calibration (N-S, etc), and I noticed that the calibration steps were quite excessive -- so excessive at times that PHD2 would lose the guide star.   I also noticed that I would occasionally lose
the camera -- it would disconnect whenever the slightest touch was applied to the cables.   What
the heck!!!

After reconnecting all the cables, closing and restarting again. I fired up PHD2, completely reset the configuration, then tried a different calibration step, then tried to calibrate.  I could hear the clicking
as I had heard at each previous attempt at calibration.   It only took 2-3 steps and started tracking.   When the mount tracks, it shows some data every time it makes an adjustment to the mount.
Normally with my setup, you see something like ".2 pixel, N 90 ms" or ".3 pixels, E 60 ms".
Now, it was showing bizarre numbers like "2 pixels, N .33 ms".   ???   But it seemed like it was guiding.   Though I could see the guide star move more noticeably.   It seemed like this was just a bizarre settings issue.

Though I had setup around 8:30, I wasn't able to start an imaging run until 12:30 -- which meant I had easily wasted 2 hours of imaging time!   I let the setup run until around 2:00, then
checked my results in BackyardEOS.   It wasn't perfect, the first 15 min subexposure had trailing
stars, and another had elongated stars, but a few of them looked "acceptable" so I let it run
until 4 AM.   The winds had died down to maybe 4-5 mph coming from the N to NE.   And
every so often, a 15-20 mph gust would whip up so I assumed between the suspicious guiding and the random gust, I was losing good data.   Out of the 13 subs, it looked like I only had maybe 6-7 good ones.

What are the possible causes for the problems?

Cold temps?
(causing the AP control box to have problems?)
(causing the computer to malfunction?)

Ground loop problem (buzzing is a symptom)?

Bad connections?

Bad power supply?

Snagged USB cable(s)?

This configuration (power supply to the mount) was new to me.   I normally attach the mount to an Optima 12 volt battery.  Then I either plug in the computer/camera AC adapter to an extension cord that runs to the shop OR I plug everything to a 12 v battery and 600 watt inverter.  The reason for the change was that I thought the power supply might be a better source of higher voltage in colder temps.    I never bothered to test either the power supply or the voltage from the inverter.   It's quite possible that the cold temps (low 20's) were affecting the inverter or the power supply to the mount.


The following night I completely reverted back to connecting the mount to the 12 volt Optima battery and the computer/camera battery to the outlet.   Temps were 10-12 deg warmer.   Everything acted and worked normally.   I even added a USB hub to prevent USB cables from having to run at 90 degrees out of the computer.










Thursday, October 9, 2014

NGC 925 REDO

So I guess I was right about the bad data ruining my NGC 925 shot.  Well, "ruining" may be too strong of a verb.   I re-stacked the frames only taking exposures that were 21 degrees and cooler.   As an experiment, I did a stack without BIAS frames and a stack with BIAS frames, but no dark frames.    Both resulted in a cleaner image with noticeably less noise which meant I could push the image further in terms of pulling out small detail in the galaxy's arms.

While I was getting more exposures in my original stack, I was basically ADDING UNNECESSARY NOISE with all those exposures between 22-29 degrees celsius.   I immediately started researching ways to non-invasively cool the Canon T3i.  About a year ago, I bought some aluminum sheet and a cooler to make one of Gary Honis's DSLR coolers.  But I wonder if I would get the same result by simply attaching the peltier/heatsink/fan combo to the back of the camera using the tripod socket?   Hm...   I'm going to have to figure something out since every time it dips above 45 degrees F my camera has heat stroke.

Anyways, here's the processed shot of NGC 925 using better data:


So get this...  this is 61 x 600 sec light frames, NO DARK FRAMES, 20 flat frames, and 44 bias frames!!!   Brought into Lightroom and Photoshop.  This is about a 70% crop of the original image.

This image is ever-so slightly less noisy than the version with dark frames and no bias frames.

Weird.

Anyways, here's an even tighter crop:


It's cool to pick out all the little galaxies in the background.  I can make out about 25 in this close-up crop.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Trying to Push Forward... M33, IC 405 (Flaming Star Nebula), and NGC 925

I've been trying to ride the momentum of the Van Vleck trip by taking a few shots back home.   I upped the ante by going for multiple nights on 3 targets.   I also switched scopes -- going back to the Tak 102 with the Televue .8x Focal Reducer/Flattener.   One of the things I immediately noticed was that the flattener tends to enlarge the size of the stars in the image.   I noticed this when I did a test shot of M45 (Pleiades) and the stars were gigantic.   But I figured I would just move forward and see what I could I get.

My first target was M33 -- the big galaxy in Triangulum:


This is one of the largest galaxies in the sky -- next to M31 (Andromeda) and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.   It's about 2.7 million light years away so the image you're seeing is what it looked like 2.7 million years ago!  All things considered, it's actually right next door compared to most of the small galaxies you can view through a telescope.

The shot is 64 x 5 minute images at 1600 ISO through the Takahashi 102 @ F/6.4 (w/.8x Focal Reducer/Flattener - part #RFL-4087).   I collected the data over three nights - around 360 minutes total.   But I let Deep Sky Stacker take the best 64 frames (5 hours, 20 minutes).  Everything is riding on the AP900 and the QHY 5II-L is guiding through the Orion Miniguider mounted to the scope.

It took me several attempts (maybe 8-9 hours) of processing to get this version which I'm OK with.   I'm happy that the H-a regions (red areas) in the arms came out pretty well.   The brightest H-a region (NGC 604) located in the lower right of the image is obviously blown out.  A more fastidious imager would reshoot about 40 - 1 minute shots.  :/   There are several globular clusters visible -- but they appear as stars.   Also, there are a couple of interesting blue nebulae visible -- most noticeable is IC 132 in the lower middle part of the image.

My approach during the 6 days of imaging was to try to shoot one target for a few hours in the early evening (9:30 to midnight) and then another target for later (1 AM - 4:30 AM).    For M33, this meant about 2-3 hours early in the evening for three nights.   Unfortunately, after the first night, I got hit by an intestinal bug and I had to bow out for 2 nights to recover.  However, the first night I did collect data on M33 and IC 405.

When I finally got out again, the weather turned out to be unstable after midnight for two nights in a row.   So I only ended up collecting 50 five minute frames of IC 405 (Flaming Star Nebula) which is located in Auriga.  Of the 50 frames, I only stacked 42 frames (210 minutes) which is really not enough.


This shot also consisted of 24 darks, 22 flats, and 20 bias frames.  It's also a 75 percent crop of the original image.  The right side of the nebula is noisy and was only barely visible on the single frames that I was collecting.   Everything else equipment wise is the same as the M33 shot.

The nice thing about 5 minute exposures is that I have a lot of darks and bias frames from previous outings.  That means I can get to processing immediately after I take my flat images.

So after looking at these two images and thinking about a comment someone made on Cloudynights about shooting at least 6 hours on a target, I decided to really collect a lot of data on a fainter galaxy.   My target was NGC 925 which is located in Triangulum, the same constellation that contains M33.

As the galaxy is relatively small, I opted to forgo the focal reducer and shoot at the native F/8 of the Tak 102.


Shooting at F/8 presents its set of challenges.  Being used to F/5.6 on the 80mm scope and F/6.4 on the Tak, I had to shoot longer exposures.  I opted for 10 minute shots.  Over the course of 4 nights, I collected 80 shots and Deep Sky Stacker culled the best 72 minutes.  I also used 160 darks, 40 flats, and 120 bias frames.  It took me 3 days to get those darks!

As the single frames were coming in, I thought it looked promising:


But honestly, I thought the final stacked image had A LOT of noise considering the 720 minutes (12 hours) of data!    In a way, I consider the NGC 925 shot a failure.   Where is all the detail?   I know part of the issue is that about 1/2 of the frames came in at 22-29 degrees celsius.  I had one warm night (in the low 50's) that seemed to wreak havoc on the sensor.   I suppose I should try re-stacking only the cooler frames (below 20 deg c) and see if I get anything better.   

The other issue here might simply be scale.   On Cloudynights, there was a guy recently who shot this same target with his 8" F/8 Ritchey-Chretien scope.   Although he only shot around 5 hours, he got tons more detail in the arms of the galaxy.  So, that makes me think that I was just shooting the wrong focal length.

"We're gonna need a bigger boat."   

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Hull Cabin back in April

Back in April I met Charles and Mike at Hull Cabin, located in the Grand Canyon National Park.  It's one of those park-owned cabins that they rent out to the general public.  It was a nice little cabin with a single bedroom with bunkbeds, a kitchen, and a living room with a fireplace.    The bathroom was located in a separate building which made you think twice about going to the bathroom at night as the temps were in the 30's.  But who am I kidding?  I was awake at night snapping shots of the stars or looking through my scope.

Sometimes you get to a point where you think you'll make a leap forward only to discover that you're still plagued by beginner's mistakes. I had a chance to shoot the Rho Ophiuchus/Antares region in the southern sky.  I had been planning to take the shot for about 5 months as I purchased a decent 135mm lens which frames the area pretty well.

In May of 2013, I tried shooting the area with my 70-200 through my old Canon XT/350D that had been modded by Hap Griffin.  This simple shot was 111 seconds (manually counted by me) on the Celestron CG5 mount.   The F/stop was 2.8 and I set ISO at 1600.



I think I processed the image in Lightroom, but I'm not sure.  Obviously, the focus is off and there is some minor star trailing.   I could never get that CG-5 working well for astrophotography.   No matter how long I spent polar aligning the mount, I always seem to get trailing in exposures greater than 30-40 seconds.

Fast forward to April 2014, I was able to get better results with the Zeiss 135mm lens.  I used the Canon that I had modified a couple months before, shot it at F/3.2 with 1600 ISO.


This shot is a result of 18 x 5 min exposures.  Only bias frames were used during the stacking of the images.  No darks or flats.  But the Zeiss lens is pretty darn impressive without much vignetting noticeable at F/3.2.   Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker.   Brought into Lightroom and Photoshop to bring out better (perhaps too much) color.  And what mount did I use?   The trusty AP900.

What I'm disappointed at is how I can't seem to deal with overly exposed elements in the image.   Both Antares (the bright orange star) and M4 are just too blown out.  And what's up with that halo around Antares?   If you look really close, the fainter stars are not pinpoints, they are elongated.  I guess I could've shot this again at Van Vleck, but I felt I should move on to more targets.   Most of my shots at Van Vleck had perfectly round stars so I'm guessing my polar alignment was to blame.

We also conducted an interesting, short comparison at Hull.   We shot the North American Nebula (NGC 7000) with both my modded Canon T3i and Charles 60Da.   The exposures were identical with identical processing.   Both shots used my Sky-Watcher 66ED with a Williams Optics reducer/flattener. On the left is the 60Da and on the right is the modded T3i.


Both exposures were for 5 minutes at ISO 6400.   Though the shots were autoguided, there was minor trailing.  I was using the CGEM mount.   It's pretty obvious that the modded T3i is letting in more H-alpha light, but the 60Da doesn't do a bad job either.   In a way, I can see why one might be happier with the 60Da.   

At Van Vleck, I discovered that the little Sky-Watcher 66ED had a loose mounting plate.   It made me wonder how long it had been loose as I had been using the 66ED as my autoguiding scope. Luckily, I noticed the loose mounting plate during the first night at Van Vleck.  As a result, I switched to the Orion Miniguider for the week at Van Vleck, which may explain why I never had guiding issues for the week.  







Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Van Vleck 4 - California, Coccoon, and IC 5068

Feeling the end of the week coming up fast, I decided to shoot three objects (Lagoon, Coccoon, California) on our fifth night and one object (IC 5068) on our last night.

Shot in the early morning hours of 8/27, the Coccoon Nebula (IC 5146) is a curious object.  It's hard to observe visually in any instrument smaller than 14-16 inches.  What you usually see is the associated dark nebulosity trailing behind it.   These inky dark trails are usually identified as LDN 1035 or Barnard 168.   The "LDN" being a designation from Lynds' Dark Nebulae catalog.   I couldn't find much on "Lynds" except that the catalog founder is a lady named Beverly T. Lynds.

This is a center crop of 22 x 5 min shots at 1600 ASA with the Canon T3i shot through the Explore Scientific 80mm F/6 scope.   I also used the Televue .8x reducer/flattener.   Darks, Flats, and Bias frames were used to produce the image.

Since we were in California, I figured it wouldn't be a real trip unless we photographed the California Nebula (NGC 1499).  NGC 1499 is a large emission nebula in the southeastern part of Perseus.  Like the Heart Nebula, it's an object that's suitable for a small scope or a telephoto lens.   Out of laziness and necessity I chose not to turn the camera to frame the target as that would require shooting a whole new set of flat frames.   By happy accident, it's oriented in a way that shows its resemblance to the state.
Full frame of the T3i with 24 x 5 min shots.   With the usual darks, flats, and bias frames stacked in Deep Sky Stacker 3.3.4, color balanced in Lightroom, then tweaked in Photoshop.

Originally, I was planning to take the last night off so I could do some preliminary processing and catch up on sleep before the 13 hour drive back home.   But the whole afternoon I kept noticing how much the sky was deep blue -- usually a sign of great transparency.   So I decided I would photograph for a few hours - until maybe midnight.   I wasn't sure what to shoot.  My original plan was to shoot the Veil, but as I was studying the Cygnus region in my copy of Sky Atlas 2000, I noticed an interesting nebulosity (IC 5068) BELOW the North American Nebula.   This little area shows three concentrations of nebulosity.   

IC 5068 seems to be part of the same complex of nebulosity associated with its more prominent neighbor NGC 7000.   In the lower right corner, you can see the southern most tip of the North American nebula.
What's interesting to me is the "blocky" or square structure in the target area.   There almost seems to be dark nebulosity "combing" across the area as if there were dark clouds obscuring the object.  

This target got 30 x 6 min exposures at ISO 1600 on the Canon T3i.   The temps were running really hot in the 22-23 deg Celsius range which even after applying Darks, the target appears unusually noisy.

But all in all I'm happy with the image as it's something slightly off the beaten-track of astrophotography targets.  A good last target for a week of learning and confidence building in astrophotography.

Van Vleck 3 - Lagoon and Heart

So part of my "mission" at Van Vleck was to capture at least one of the summer targets in the Milky Way.
After some consideration, I decided upon the dual targets of the Lagoon (M8) and the Trifid Nebula (M20, M21).   Both of these targets are in Sagittarius.
The image is a result of 22 x 5 min exposures with darks, flats, bias.   I used the trusty modified Canon T3i at 1600 ASA (for the whole trip).  Explore Scientific 80mm F/6 with Televue .8x reducer/flattener (TRF-2008).  For reasons that I couldn't figure out, the camera was running hot at 18-24 degrees Celsius.   Lots of extra H-alpha nebulosity hinted at the region.   I know there's a lot more data there, but I'm fine with what I got.

I also shot the Heart Nebula (IC 1805) which I've shot a few times before.  It's a fairly large target that is suitable for smaller scopes and telephoto lenses.   This target (as well as its companion, the Soul Nebula) lie in the western part of Cassiopeia.
This is a result of 30 x 6 min shots.  So, one of the longer exposed images of the trip.  Darks, flats, and bias frames taken.   I was suprised at how much noise there was in the image overall.  Looking at my files it seems these shots ran pretty hot at 17-18 deg Celsius.  Having shot this camera a lot at home, I know there is an obvious improvement in image noise when you can get it down to 3-4 deg Celsius.  Hm...

At the end of the night, I was curious about the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253) which is fairly large by galaxy standards.   This is a simple 10 min shot of NGC 253 and its Globular friend NGC 288.
Couple of things to immediately note of this single frame:  Vignetting!   And noise.   

I would love to get down to Southern AZ and photograph this pair again with maybe 30-40 subexposures.

Van Vleck 3 - Polar Alignment Notes

LINK TO METHOD I USE:  http://www.cloudynights.com/page/articles/cat/articles/darv-drift-alignment-by-robert-vice-r2760

On the fourth day I finally felt confident that I had really solid polar alignment - mostly because I had been doing it for 3 nights straight.  I use a method that relies upon shots taken in the south and the east.

I start out by roughly polar aligning the mount to Polaris.   Having a polar alignment scope can help immensely in this initial alignment step.  Then, to begin the procedure, I point the telescope with the camera to the south, about 10-15 deg above the horizon.  Then I do a short test exposure of about 50 seconds.   For the first ten seconds, I just let the exposure run as is.   Then for 20 seconds, I press the left button on the mount keypad.  I should preface this by saying that I've set the mount control speed to either the lowest or next to the lowest setting on the hand controller.   Then after the 20 seconds have passed, I press the right button.

The following image is a result of the above procedure:


What you end up with is a bunch of lines that have a "head" or dot at one end.   That dot was created by the initial 10 second exposure and the lines represent the movement caused by your hand controller.

A closeup of the left upper corner reveals an interesting picture:


In the middle of the closeup you can see a golden line created by a star.  As mentioned above, the dot is a result of the 10 second hold at the beginning of the image.  Then you see the line going down that was a result of pressing the left button on the mount keypad.  As you notice there are two lines which is the result of pressing the right button.   The line connected to the dot is the line made by the left button and the incomplete line is made by the right button.   What's important here is the GAP between the two lines.  What you're trying to accomplish is a "collapse" of that double line into a single line.



How do you that?  If the scope is pointing to the south, then you move your azimuth (left-right adjustment) on your mount just a little bit.   Then you repeat the above procedure to see if that gap between the two lines has increased or decreased.   After a few iterations, you should be able to collapse that gap so that it's just one solid line coming from the dot.

Once you've accomplished this you move the scope to the east about the same angle above the horizon and repeat the procedure.  EXCEPT now you are making physical adjustments to the altitude (up-down adjustment) of the mount.   The same phenomenon will occur.   As your lines collapse, you approach the appropriate altitude for good polar alignment.

To further refine the polar alignment you can increase the time interval for creating those lines above.   After I collapse the lines at 50 seconds, I will typically go back and do the same procedure at 170 seconds.  When you are satisfied with 170 seconds in both azimuth and altitude, then you should have good enough polar alignment for an unguided 2 min shot.    And it's certainly good enough for autoguiding.

Van Vleck 2

The cabin is a forest service owned building which they rent out for part of the year.   It's pretty basic with a main living area, kitchen, 1 bedroom, and 1 bathroom.   The place runs on propane gas and a spring supplies water.  No electricity.  Our stay was largely uneventful except for a rodent (mice) problem.

One of the challenges of doing remote astrophotography is power.  Laptops, telescope mounts, and dew heaters all need electricity.  Fortunately, the dew was a minimal problem and I only had it show
up one night later into the evening/morning.  In the photo above, you can see our impromptu "recharge station" powered by a 2000 watt generator.   The Hyundai generator ran like a champ all week.   It consumed about 6-7 gallons of gas in total and ran about 35 hours.
Here's our two setups (partially disassembled) during the daytime.

On our 3rd night out, I got a chance to photograph the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293) located in Aquarius which is in the eastern-southeastern part of the sky.   This part of the sky doesn't contain many obvious targets for a smaller telescope, but it has many galaxies.  The Helix is about 700 light years away (Wiki) and is a planetary nebula.   Its size is a result of its closeness.  Most planetary nebulae are further away than the Helix.

This shot is a stack of 31 x 5 min shots.   (1600 ASA -- all shots at VV were at 1600).  Flats, darks, bias.
Processed via DSS, Lightroom, and Photoshop.  This is a crop of the approx. 50% of the area of the original.   Couple of nitpicks:   1)  Target is a little small for a 80mm scope.   2) The hints of red circular nebulosity to the lower left of the nebula really speak to the need for doing this target as a composite (like M31) by doing a series of 15-20 minute exposures as well.

Van Vleck

Sorry for the long hiatus.   I had some images from a trip to Hull Cabin in April, but I was a little disappointed with the results so I didn't post them.

This August marked the second get-together at a cabin in Northern California with Charles.   Last year, it was a kind of discovery trip as I didn't really bring any imaging gear.    The skies at Van Vleck Bunkhouse are pretty good and since summer is monsoon season in Flagstaff, it afforded an opportunity to photograph and enjoy the summer constellations and "goodies" in the Milky Way.  We had 6 nights at the cabin and the weather held steady for a solid 5 nights.  For me the first night was getting back into the routine of polar aligning and it took me a pitiful 4-5 hours to get things right.   It wasn't until well into the second night that I finally felt I had all my ducks lined up.

But even on the second night, I didn't take many long exposures.  I finally got a series going on good 'ole M31, the Andromeda Galaxy:

This photo of M31 is a composite effort based upon 15 x 5 min shots and 15 x 1 min shots.   I used the Explore Scientific 80mm F/6 APO with a Televue .8x reducer/flattener.  I took darks, flats, bias shots and used Lightroom as well as Photoshop to process.   Images were stacked using Deep Sky Stacker 3.3.4.  For the whole week the scope was mounted in a dual-saddle configuration on an AP900 mount.   Guiding was done with an Orion 50mm Guidescope with a QHY5L-II autoguider.

Although I'm satisfied with the shot, during processing, I could see there's definitely faint detail to be culled around the edges of the galaxy.   I believe a series of long exposures (15 x 15 min ???) would give me the data I would need to really capture the halo outside the perimeter of the present image.

Toward the end of the night, I thought I'd point the scope at the Pleiades (M45) and see what I could get with 15 minutes of exposure.  Taken at 3:52 in the morning.  Sensor temp: 14 deg. Celsius.

Monday, March 10, 2014

More Flux.   So a few posts back I posted a single frame of flux nebulosity near M81/M82.   It was a single 15 minute exposure.  That evening I had managed to take 17 exposures at 15 minutes.   All the exposures showed excessive trailing due to mysterious mount issues.  For kicks, I decided to stack 16 exposures to see what I would get.   Here it is:  Camera:  135mm Zeiss at F/3.2.   Mount:  Orion Sirius.   Shots at 800 ISO.   Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker with lights and bias only.  No flats, no darks.   Heavily pushed in levels in Photoshop.   The colors were really out of whack and I couldn't recover anything that resembled "normal".   Interesting result.


You can see M82/M81 in the upper right of the shot.

I believe the shape in the lower half of the screen is referred to as the "angel".   I think if I stuck with the astro-physics mount and dedicated 3 nights (maybe 12-15 hours total) to this area, I could come up with enough data for a passable image.   As it stands, I have to push it so much that I end up with too much noise for my taste.




This is the processed Seagull Nebula with data taken on 2/21/14.   Scope:  Zeiss 135mm lens at f/3.2.  Mount:  Orion Sirius.   On dual saddle guided with the Sky-Watcher 66mm f/6.5 scope.   Best 33 out of 50 exposures at 3 minutes, 1600 ISO.   Darks and Bias frames used.   But NO flats.  Shot through the Canon T3i.    Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, processed in CS5.


The "head" of the Seagull is referred to as GUM-1.   The open cluster in the upper left is M50.   The smaller cluster embedded in the left "shoulder" is NGC 2335.   The cluster in the left part of the "abdomen" is NGC 2343.   And the cluster to the far right is NGC 2345.  The overall body of the Seagull is designated as IC 2177.

This was a bear to process in Deep Sky Stacker.   It kept producing a TIF file that was severely clipped.      I spent several hours reprocessing with different parameters.   Normally, I stick with the default settings using "Median Kappa-Sigma" for my stacking of lights, darks, and bias.   In the end, these worked, but for the sake of memory, I'm listing other settings:   Register settings - actions - Select best 90%.   Star Detection at 45%.   Stacking:  Mosaic.   ENABLED 2x Drizzle.   Alignment:  Auto.   Cosmetic:  Nothing selected.  Before exporting out of DSS, I tweaked the TIF file in the native editor as much as I could to bring out the red nebulosity.

In Photoshop, the most important manipulation of the image was under the "Select" menu:  Both "Color Range" and "Refine Mask" were pivotal in selecting the faintest red areas of the nebulosity so that I could bring it out in post-processing.     Processing is such a pain.

Comparing this to the earlier single frame I posted a couple weeks ago…it doesn't seem like it's much of an improvement.    In fact, I like the colors better in the single frame I processed.    My only solace is that there's probably less noise in the image above, but you'd have to have a large print to notice any difference.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Charles wanted to know what things looked like before processing so here's a single frame brought straight into Photoshop with no processing, then exported as a level "8" jpeg.



And then here's that frame processed and cropped a bit to replicate the image from my last post:

 
 
What's obvious is the noise and loss of some faint detail compared to the previous post's image.  Keep in my that stacking is an AVERAGING process, not additive.    What you're doing is increasing the signal-to-noise ratio by stacking successive frames.   What that means in practice is that you can bring out a lot more detail in post processing.  Informally speaking, there is in a sense an "additive" process going on.   I haven't done it myself, but if I had stacked 100 images, I'd bring out more whispy, faint details in the disks of the galaxy -- which to me is the hallmark of an exceptional image.    There's definitely more detail to bring out in my previous post's image, but that will take time.   For example,  in M66 (the right most galaxy) there is a faint whispy extension of the spiral arm on the left most part of the galaxy.   You can barely see it in the previous post.  But it's harder to see in the above image because it's more buried in the noise.  
 
The other obvious technique is to take longer subexposures (like 10-15 minutes).    Which is always easier in theory to do than in practice.   I've found that the hit-to-miss ratio is much lower in longer exposures.  At five minute exposures, I can expect to keep 75% of the results.  With 10-15 minute exosures, I can expect a lot less.   Of course I'm assuming we're sticking with the Sirius mount.  I think that number would jump to 97 percent keepers at 5 min and 90 percent keepers at 10-15 minutes with the Astro-physics mount.
 
If you look closely at NGC 3628 (aka "the Hamburger") in my previous post, you can see a faint nebulous extension perpendicular to the disk of the galaxy pointing to the 2 o'clock position.  And to the left of the disk of 3628 (on the same side) you can see a scattering of tiny galaxies.   Those features are largely lost in the noise of the single frame.   For a reference, check out this image of 3628 from one of the masters of astrophotography, Russell Croman:
 
 
It's sorta upside down compared to my image.
 

Here's my first effort using Lights, Darks, Flats, and Bias frames.   Taken on 2/24/2014.   Scope:  Tak 102 w/.8x Televue Reducer/Flattener.   Mount:  Orion Sirius.   Camera:  Modded Canon T3i.   Exposures: Best 37 out of 48 five minute exposures at 1600 ISO.   Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker.   Processed Photoshop CS5.   The TIF file produced by DSS was very red and I had to use Camera Raw in Photoshop via the Bridge.


There was something really goofy about the dark files.   There's an odd gradient in the left side of the image.   I was also surprised at the overall noise in the image.   There's also a fair bit of clipping around the edges of the galaxies.    I'll address the excess noise and clipping when I have some time.  

Oh yeah, the subject?   The Leo Trio.   Made up of M65 (upper center), M66 (right), and NGC 3628 (lower left).   



Tuesday, March 4, 2014

After 7 sessions with the smaller rig, I decided to setup the "big rig" to become familiar with the bigger mount and 45 lb telescope.   It was all so different that I felt like it was the first time.


As you can see, I was stuck under a hazy sky that got worse and worse.   I was using the OAG with the guide camera.   The haze was so bad that I had to resort to 8 second exposures with the auto guider.   I ended up having to use a "dark frame" to subtract noise.   I was a bit skeptical, but I worked my way up from 60 seconds to 4 min to 6 min, then finally, to 10 min on M81.


The conditions were pretty bad, but it wasn't too bad for shooting through a very hazy sky.   Single frame, 1600 ISO, 10 min, curves, levels, hue, vibrance in Photoshop.

[Cont'd later]

Setup time was considerably longer.  I started setting up around 8 and I wasn't taking my first test images until 11:30.   The setup was much farther away from the house.   My logic here was that I could use the neighbor's outdoor storage building to block the obnoxious light from another neighbor who always has to have a bright backyard light on.   I discovered that while the site location worked in this regard, I was doused with light from yet another neighbor across the street and down a bit.    At some point, this neighbor turned off their front porch light.   But it was still an annoyance.  

Another reason for the longer setup was the Off-Axis Guider (OAG).   It was really hard to find stars and just as hard to get good focus.  I had to keep increasing the exposure length in PHD2 to get any kind of signal.   This problem was exacerbated by the deteriorating conditions.   The upside was that I was able to get roundish stars to guide on.   I also used a blue marker to note the focus location on the guide camera.

It took a long time to navigate the Astro-Physics hand controller.  It's very different than the Synta/Orion controller.   And I kept thinking I had to restart the mount to get to some menus when in fact, I just didn't know how to navigate the menus.  I ran around like an idiot trying to find the manual, but then I realized I could download it and pull it up on the laptop.  Yay for wireless.

A potential problem with the big setup is cable length.  To connect the camera and autoguider with the laptop I'm using 6 ft USB cables.  It's quite apparent that some slews will pull the cable too taut.   I'm going to have to invest in 10 ft cables.   Also, the AC power that powers the camera is a little short.   I think I'm going to have to run the extension cord up the pier and keep it secured maybe with bungee cords.  

Overall, I was suprised by the effectiveness of the guiding.   I expected there to be problems with 6 and 10 minute exposure.  There actually was a problem with the 4 min. exposure as the stars looked like two connected blobs.  I suspect that either I hit the mount or PHD2 lost the guide star for a while.   For polar alignment, I just used the polar scope.   Because it had taken SO LONG to setup, I decided not to use the "DSLR method" of polar alignment.   With the finer controls on this mount, I should be able to dial in some excellent polar alignment next time.

Oh, yeah, the shot of M81 is full frame on the Canon T3i.  The FOV (field of view) is obviously excellent for M81.   But in fact, there are not going to be many galaxies that large.   I did another shot (which I'm not posting) of M51 in the thickening haze, and though it didn't turn out well, it made me think that I really should be shooting around 2000mm FL.    The 8 inch f/6 comes in at 1200mm.