Setup to image the Whirlpool galaxy with a DSLR.
One of my favourite galaxies is the whirlpool galaxy M51 in Ursa Major. It’s actually two, interacting galaxies, caught up in a dance about 23 million light years away. The nebulosity from the arms as they start mixing up is great (visually, who knows what it’s like).
It’s actually a sight that we’ll be close up to in about 4.5-5 billion years, when the Andromeda galaxy and our milky way is hitting it off.
One target for the evening was to try my new camera for recording this stuff. I was on hunt for a camera with night vision to be able to record something out in the field.
I found this D-link, DCS-8525-LH, motorised Wi-Fi camera on sale. With Wi-Fi available it felt like a nice option. We’ll see how it works out. I’ve been using D-link before and they do work simple enough.
Not sure I like the framework that you're caught up in though. Everything is tied up to the app and I haven’t found a way to use it stand alone.
I’ve got it on a tripod powered by a battery bank and I can leave it overnight with a motion trigger to alert me if any wild life is making a mess.
I’ll go through my basic imagining session from when I have the target in sight. There is a little tip for DSLR users in there as well.
The beauty of the setup I’ve got is that I really don’t need to do any star or polar alignments on a regular basis. It’s been working pretty well for some time.
CGX mount is behaving pretty well as well. With guiding accuracy of ≈ 1” total I don’t thing I would send this back even if I was offered the opportunity. I’m getting it under my thumb and I think in some time we’ll be good friends anyway. It might be a Frankenstein friend, but they can be good friends too!
There are still a few hick-up’s that need to be fixed from Celestron's side I think.
For instance, with the current firmware on the HC: CEM 5.31.9200 there is no longer the user object option. You can’t save, and of course then not load user specified objects. You can get the RA/DEC coordinates, but you have to record them yourself. Pen & paper, picture or great memory. That sucks and need to be addressed.
I also tried to reload the firmware in case it was an error, but I could not connect to it with the CFM software... From other users I have heard that they have the same menu tree.
Anyway, that’s the rant of the night.
Have a good one, and may the dark side be with you!