Saturday, May 27, 2017

#88 - Saturday, May 27, 2017 - Texas Star Party Night 7

Since it was the last night of the Texas Star Party, I needed to pack up that evening so we could take off in the morning for the long drive back.  However, I decided to grab at least a little more data – you know I can’t resist.  The ISS was scheduled to make a twilight pass near the crescent Moon, so I went to SkySafari to figure out how far away, and then decided to use the 55-200mm lens on the D3200 piggybacked on the Borg.  I grabbed several frames as it moved across, and then also some nice ones of the earthshine as well.  I took some videos on the C11 too, but haven’t processed them.
Moon, Nikon D3200 piggybacked on Borg 76ED on the Celestron AVX mount
200mm @ f/5.6, 0.77s, ISO-800

I made a GIF of the ISS pass (and I think I've figured out how to control the frame rate now):
ISS passing by the moon, Nikon D3100, 165mm @ f/5.6
1/4s, ISO-800 (except for those two weirdly longer frames in the middle, which are 1/2s - not sure why that happened)

What a great trip!  I was glad to spend some time with Melody, and I got some absolutely incredible images.  I imaged 22 separate targets that week, we had clear nights nearly the entire week, I met some awesome people, and had a nice relaxing time out in the middle of West Texas.  I’m so glad I went!  And I’m definitely going to plan on going next year, this time with Miqaela!


Friday, May 26, 2017

#87 - Friday, May 26, 2017 - Texas Star Party Night 6

After the last talk of the day, astronaut Don Petit’s “Scientific Advances from What Appears to be Goofing Around in Space,” it was a rush to get set up as the sky cleared and darkened and the sunset winds died down.  Re-aligned, re-polar aligned, and started with face-on spiral galaxy M100.  Stuck to 6-minute subs for greater reliability (and the possibility of me having dark files to match), and it came out pretty decently!  Might go back and fix the coloring a bit.  Unfortunately, I discovered that my laptop’s screen is very de-saturated – colors do not look as intense as they do on other screens.  It’s an old laptop.  So I’ll have to be careful editing on it in the future not to over-saturate; I posted a bunch of pictures on Facebook that looked awful on my phone, haha.  
Date: 26 May 20176
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: M100
Camera: Nikon D5300
Telescope: Celestron C11
Accessories: f/6.3 focal reducer
Mount: Celestron CGE Pro
Guide scope: Orion ST-80
Guide camera: QHY5
Subframes: 16x360s (1h36m), ISO-1600
Darks: 15
Biases: 20
Flats: 20
Temperature: 47-50F

It’s between constellations Virgo and Coma Berenices, both of which contain massive galaxy clusters.  This image contains five galaxies, according to AstroBin.  Four are easy to see; the fifth is a little white dot at about the 10 o’clock position, but not that star that’s right on the edge closer to 11 o’clock.  The cigar-shaped one on the lower left is NGC 4312.  It’s not quite edge-on, but it’s closer.  I swear I can see three more galaxies in the lower part of the frame that AstroBin didn’t label. 
            
While images were going, Melody and I went up to the upper field again, and this time we were in for a treat!  We hung around the 36” Dob and got to see a few things.  First we looked at Arp 330, a string of tiny dim galaxies.  I thought I could see a few of the six, but it was difficult.  Then, we got to see…M51!  This was going to be good.  It was nearly overhead, so the Dob was almost vertical, and the ladder was quite wobbly up that high.  I brought my face to the eyepiece, and gave a woop!  It was so incredible.  You could easily see the spiral structure, even the part that appears to connect M51 to the smaller galaxy NGC 5195.  It was so bright, and so amazing!  The owner of the big scope, I think his name was Larry, said he got the eyepiece that was in there specifically for looking at M51.  What a treat!
            
After we got back down to the lower field, I also looked at open cluster Cronenberger 13, open cluster Collinder 333, and open cluster Berkley 46, which I thought looks kind of like a hand, through Bob’s refractor. 
            
On the Borg, I started with the Rho Oph complex, with the D3200 piggybacked again.  I wanted more data on it.  Then when the Milky Way came up a little more, I zoomed out to 100mm and did a widefield shot that I wasn’t sure about at first, and it didn’t do well in DSS, but then I processed a single frame, and with some Photoshopping, it came out really nice.  It’s already got 18 likes on AstroBin, and two comments!  
Date: 26 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: Milky Way widefield
Camera: Nikon D3200 (Miqaela's), piggybacked on Borg 76ED
Telescope: 55-200mm lens at 100mm, f/5.6
Accessories: NA
Mount: Celestron AVX
Guide scope: N/A
Guide camera: N/A
Single frame, 150s, ISO-1600
See on AstroBin (including labels!!)
Buy on Zazzle

There’s a bunch of stuff in here according to AstroBin, but the highlights include M8 and M20 near the top of the frame; the Sagittarius Star Cloud on the left; and M4 in the lower portion, along with a whole bunch more globulars and other clusters well-known stars.  I’m quite pleased with it. 
            
I left the camera piggyback and rotated over to the Elephant Trunk nebula later that night, but I can’t really tell which of those dark lanes is supposed to be the elephant trunk part.  It’s still quite pretty, and includes the Garnet Star there on the left.
Date: 26 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: IC 1396 Elephant Trunk Nebula
Camera: Nikon D3200 (Miqaela's), piggybacked on Borg 76ED
Telescope: 55-200mm lens at 200mm
Accessories: NA
Mount: Celestron AVX
Guide scope: N/A
Guide camera: N/A
Subframes: 21x150s (52m30s), ISO-1600
Darks: 20 (fridge darks)
Biases: 18
Flats: 0
Temperature: 46F

Here’s a picture club member Will posted recently from inside his Newtonian (so a much smaller FOV) of the elephant trunk part.
Hmm.
            
Over on the C11, in the wee hours after getting a reasonable amount of data on M100, I decided I just had to image M51.  I was trying to not image the brighter stuff that I can image from home, but I couldn’t resist.  I snagged about 12x6-minute subs before the sun came up, and each sub looked better than my previous best M51, so I knew this was going to be good.  When I processed it later, my jaw hit the floor!
Date: 26 May 20176
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: M51 Whirlpool Galaxy
Camera: Nikon D5300
Telescope: Celestron C11
Accessories: f/6.3 focal reducer
Mount: Celestron CGE Pro
Guide scope: Orion ST-80
Guide camera: QHY5
Subframes: 8x360s (48m), ISO-1600
Darks: 15
Biases: 20
Flats: 20
Temperature: 46F

HOLY COW!!  Simply incredible.  I couldn’t see any of that wispy gas around NGC 5195 in the subs, and the colors came out just perfect.  I am totally thrilled!  It’s a little on the noisy side, but the background came out nice.  So incredible.  I’m so excited!!  I’m so glad I decided to grab some data on that.
            
Also that night, I brought the D3100 and Melody’s ultrabook up to the upper field and set up a two-hour timelapse – that’s as long as my camera battery will last.  The vantage point I wanted was too far from an AC power source, although next year I’ll have to work something out because I really want an all-night timelapse up there.  I took 30-second frames to get a nice Milky Way, but this only got me 180 frames, unfortunately.  But it looks awesome in the TSP compilation video I made!  Here’s a single frame I processed.
Milky Way over the upper field at the Texas Star Party
Nikon D3100, 18mm @ f/3.5, 30s, ISO-3200

Beautiful!

And here's the compilation video I made (the upper field timelapse is at the end):



Thursday, May 25, 2017

#86 - Thursday, May 25, 2017 - Texas Star Party Night 5

I finally gave up on guiding with the C8, and I took it off and packed it away.  I attached the Borg directly, and just didn’t guide.  The AVX mount had good enough tracking and the telescope a low enough f-ratio (f/5) to get some awesome stuff.  After re-aligning and re-polar aligning (it was off a little each night – probably got moved around a tiny bit during the day with take the tarps on and off, the wind, etc), I set it on M81 & M82, but there were several clouds that rolled through, and there was a *ton* of noise, like the chip was hot or something.  It didn’t come out very well at all.  Partway through, I took off the camera and put it on Bob’s refractor to image Omega Centauri (again, behind the tree for me…), and that one came out great!  I didn’t have any flats, but refractors are already a lot flatter than my SCTs because of their smaller aperture, lack of central obstruction, etc.  I just grabbed like 10 1-minute frames; I didn’t want to take up too much of the scope time, so I didn’t do a test to see how long his mount could track for well enough for imaging.  
Date: 25 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: Omega Centauri
Camera: Nikon D3200
Telescope: Bob's William Optics FLT110
Accessories: N/A
Mount: Bob's Atlas EQ6 controlled by EQMOD
Guide scope: N/A
Guide camera: N/A
Subframes: 10x60s, ISO-1600
Darks: 15
Biases: 20
Flats: None
Temperature: 63F

It’s huge, nearly twice the size of a full moon!  And may contain as many as 10 million stars!  This FOV is what I’m used to for globular clusters in my C11, but this was in a 110mm refractor!  I got a nice comment on AstroBin about it, from user RonAdams: “Beautiful image.  Nice color and sooooooo many stars resolved.  The imaging and processing of the core is very impressive.  Everything you could want in a globular cluster image.”
            
Due to the clouds, I didn’t get anything on the C11 either, although I did take some videos of Jupiter.  I haven’t processed them because I already know they’re not going to be as good as the ZWO one.  I mean, the video looks terrible, no clear frames at all. 
            
Melody and I took the opportunity of a clouded night to get some sleep, even though it probably cleared up later.


Wednesday, May 24, 2017

#85 - Wednesday, May 24, 2017 - Journey to the Center of the Galaxy (Texas Star Party Night 4)

Another clear night ahead! First C11 target that evening were the Antennae galaxies.  My re-alignment and re-polar alignment was good enough that I decided to try for 7-minute subs, and it worked!  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any darks to match, so the next day I put my camera in Bob’s refrigerator to get a close-enough temperature match.  I also took darks on Miqaela’s camera this way.  I also snagged darks in the morning hours each morning when I went to bed.  I think I need some better darks for this set, though – it didn’t turn out that great.  It came out pretty noisy.  In addition, the focus got crazy bad by the end of the set – the mirror must have shifted as it crossed the meridian.  I re-focused before the next target.  You can see the long tails though, which is cool!  You can’t see them in the subs.
Date: 24 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: M104 Sombrero Galaxy
Camera: Nikon D5300
Telescope: Celestron C11
Accessories: f/6.3 focal reducer
Mount: Celeston CGE Pro
Guide scope: Orion ST-80
Guide camera: QHY5
Subframes: 7x420s (49m), ISO-1600
Darks: 8
Biases: 20
Flats: 20
Temperature: 45-50F

The second target of the night was the Bubble Nebula, which I’ve attempted before from home, but I had some tracking problems and only got a few usable subframes, so the result was pretty noisy.  This one came out quite nice.
Date: 24 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: NGC 7635 Bubble Nebula
Camera: Nikon D5300
Telescope: Celestron C11
Accessories: f/6.3 focal reducer
Mount: Celestron CGE Pro
Guide scope: Orion ST-80
Guide camera: QHY5
Subframes: 14?x420s, ISO-1600
Darks: 8
Biases: 20
Flats: 20
Temperature: 43-45F

The noise issue is helped by the fact that I’m slowly learning more techniques in Photoshop.  I discovered that you can edit TIFs in Adobe Camera Raw as well, not just raws (although it works better on raw files), and that includes the denoising and dehazing tools.  They work fantastically well.  The astronomy toolkit I recently bought has some denoising tools as well.  Someday, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, I’ll be able to get a cooled camera, and the noise issue will be mostly behind me…my DSLR is noisy as heck.  

After getting the AVX aligned (I used the Borg to align instead of the C8 this time), I decided I wanted to try Miqaela’s ZWO ASI120MM camera on Jupiter on the C8.  So I got it all attached, slewed over to Jupiter, and fired up SharpCap on Melody’s ultrabook and got it focused.  The clear moments through the atmospheric disturbances looked fantastic.  I couldn’t find the piece I needed to attach the camera to Miqaela’s ZWO filter wheel, so I used mine instead after taking a luminance video, the ones Randy gave me with that old SBIG camera that I still need to try this summer.  I didn’t get to process it until after I got home because I couldn’t get RegiStax to read the AVI files (turned out I just needed to import them into VirtualDub and re-save them as AVI, which RegiStax was perfectly happy with), and HOLY SWEET GOODNESS came out incredible!  My excitement was mounting as I processed each color channel through RegiStax and saw how magnificent they were coming out.  I had to do some color-rebalancing and used only one of the channels for the moons in a copy-and-paste job in Photoshop, but here’s the result!
Date: 24 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: Jupiter
Camera: ZWO ASI120MM (Miqaela's)
Telescope: Celestron C8
Accessories: RGB filters from Randy Thomas
Mount: Celestron AVX
Guide scope: N/A
Guide camera: N/A
Forgot to record numbers of frames...drat!
3x180s videos, RGB (L had to be eliminated because of dust spot)

Look at that detail!  I don’t know why my DSLR can’t capture that, but this is awesome.  And the CCD camera has a higher dynamic range than my DSLR apparently because I was able to get the moons and Jupiter with the same settings.  I need to get me one of these!!

After Jupiter, I put the DSLR on the Borg and got started around 1:30 AM with the North America Nebula, which I put on my photographic list over a year ago and attempted once but gave up on because I saw absolutely nothing in the subframe.  In these subs, you can kind of see a hint of dark nebulosity, but that’s about it.  But of course, stacking is magical.  I should use this as another one of my examples of “the power of stacking.”  


Date: 24 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: NGC 7000 North America Nebula
Camera: Nikon D3200 (Miqaela's)
Telescope: Borg 76ED
Accessories: N/A
Mount: Celestron Advanced VX
Guide scope: N/A
Guide camera: N/A
Subframes: 27x180s (1h21m), ISO-1600
Darks: 20
Biases: 18
Flats: 20
Temperature: 42-45F
Buy on Zazzle

I ought to try this one again with a larger FOV – there’s much more of it.   I’ll have to try with my 55-200mm lens piggybacked or something.  Or the 70-300mm.    

Someone told me about Baade’s Window after seeing my image of M8 and M20, which is a region that is relatively free of the interstellar dust that normally obscures the view of the galactic core.  I titled it “Journey to the Center of the Galaxy” when I posted it online!  It’s pretty awesome.  Millions of stars.  It didn’t stack well in DSS – I don’t think DSS works well on widefields, and is more meant for DSOs alone with black backgrounds – so instead, later, I ran a single frame through DSS just to do dark subtraction and bias correction, and then processed in Photoshop.  I like that result better.
Weird result from DeepSkyStacker (I don't think it likes doing widefields with so many stars)
21x180s, ISO-1600
Date: 24 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: Baade's Window
Camera: Nikon D3200 (Miqaela's)
Telescope: Borg 76ED
Accessories: N/A
Mount: Celestron Advanced VX
Guide scope: N/A
Guide camera: N/A
Single frame, 1x180s, notprocessed through DSS

In the center is globular cluster NGC 6522, which is quite possibly the oldest globular cluster in the Milky Way at 12 billion years.  The star in the lower left is Sagittarius star Alnasl, or γ Sgr.
            
As morning drew near, I saw that Cassiopeia is rising, and Cassiopeia means the Andromeda Galaxy!  The Borg would be perfect for M31.  Usually I have to wait till August to image it, but since I was already awake in the morning hours, I decided to snag a few subframes before the sun came up.  And boy am I glad I did!  After 12 attempts to image M31, I finally, finally have one I am mostly happy with.  I’d love to have more data on it to get more detail on those lovely dust lanes, but I’m in love with how this came out!  At long last!
Date: 24 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: M31 Andromeda Galaxy
Camera: Nikon D3200
Telescope: Borg 76ED
Accessories: N/A
Mount: Celestron Advanced VX
Guide scope: N/A
Guide camera: N/A
Subframes: 7x180s, ISO-1600
Darks: 20
Biases: 18
Flats: 20
Temperature: 43F

Yeaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!  Another all-nighter.
            
I also did some stuff with my D3100 while the two scopes were going.  I zoomed in on the Milky Way to 60mm on my 55-200mm lens and took 5-second subframes, but the result didn’t come out very well.  Then I also just took more long-exposure of the Milky Way with some foreground like trees and my telescopes.  And me. 😝
Nikon D3100, 18mm @ f/3.5, 30s, ISO-3200

I’ll take this again next year with fewer warm clothes on and make a nice profile pictures out of it!  It’s a 30-second exposure at f/3.5 and ISO-3200.  You can see some trails in the stars if you zoom in, but all the way zoomed out like this, they look fine, and you get some beautiful detail on the Milky Way. 
            
I think Melody and I also went up to the upper field again, and the big Dob was being used, but they were hunting down dim open clusters; I took a peak, but there wasn’t much to see with the bad air and the high magnification they had on it, looking at some dim open cluster that shone mostly in IR, they said.  I don’t remember what it was called.


Tuesday, May 23, 2017

#84 - Tuesday, May 23, 2017 - Texas Star Party Night 3

It was cloudy again in the first part of the evening, but not too bad.  I re-aligned and re-polar aligned both scopes, and this time I used the Borg to align the AVX since that’s what I’d be imaging through.  This time, I did 6-minute subframes on the CGE Pro, which worked great.  I imaged M104, the Sombrero Galaxy, first.  
Date: 23 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: M104 Sombrero Galaxy
Camera: Nikon D5300
Telescope: Celestron C11
Accessories: f/6.3 focal reducer
Mount: Celeston CGE Pro
Guide scope: Orion ST-80
Guide camera: QHY5
Subframes: 8x360s (48m), ISO-1600
Darks: 15
Biases: 20
Flats: 20
Temperature: 41F - 50F

Once that was underway, I set up the D3200 on the Borg to image Markarian’s Chain while I waited for the Milky Way to rise.  It came out okay.  One nice thing with the shorter exposure times is that I got 57 usable subframes in less than four hours.  
Date: 23 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: Markarian's Chain
Camera: Nikon D3200 (Miqaela's)
Telescope: Borg 76ED, piggybacked on C8
Mount: Celestron AVX
Guide scope: N/A
Guide camera: N/A
Subframes: 51x150s (2h7m), ISO-1600
Darks: 18
Biases: 20
Flats: 20
Temperature: 45 degrees F 
See on AstroBin (plus galaxy labels)

Sooooo many galaxies!

Once the Milky Way was good and up, I moved over to M8 & M20, the Lagoon and Trifid Nebulae, and some of the gorgeous clouds of the Milky Way.  The tracking let me get away with 150 seconds (2-1/2 minutes) on the Borg, which is pretty decent since its focal length is 500mm.  It slowly drifted, but not too bad.  When I stacked it, I discovered that the Borg has some serious field curvature.  I don’t know if it’s that my camera chip size is too big for it or if I need some additional corrective optics, but I’m going to need a field flattener if I want to do much more imaging with it.  Unfortunately, they’re really expensive – I did a brief search, and the lowest focal reducer I could get (it’s already got a pretty large FOV with a DSLR attached to it) is like $350.  Yikes.  I’ll have to keep poking around.  Still pretty much in love with the result, though.
Date: 23 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: M8 & M20, Lagoon & Trifid Nebulae
Camera: Nikon D3200 (Miqaela's)
Telescope: Borg 76ED, piggybacked on C8
Mount: Celestron AVX
Guide scope: N/A
Guide camera: N/A 
Subframes: 37x150s (1h32m), ISO-1600
Darks: 18
Biases: 20
Flats: 20
Temerature: 42 deg (darks taken at 39 degrees)

Sooooo pretty!  Colors look great, the stars that are near the center at least don’t look like they show any chromatic aberration (I mean, it is an ED apochromatic triplet), and that FOV is great for all those large gorgeous nebulae out there.  And with a small chip CCD like the ASI120, it gets a similar FOV as my C11 does with a DSLR, so I should be able to do some awesome stuff with galaxies and smaller things with a camera like that.  I should try my QHY5 on it sometime.   
            
While the first round of targets was going, I brought my sister Melody with me to the Upper Field to see what was happening up there.  It was packed!  So many people plugging away at observing lists or photography.  We wandered around, hoping to find someone who’d lend a view through their scope.  We eventually came across a pair of absolutely massive binoculars that I just had to look through!  They were 6 inches in aperture apiece!  The guy was really nice and pointed them at a few things for us and whatever I wanted to see.  We looked at galaxies M95 & M96, Comet 41P, Omega Centauri, the Leo Triplet, and the False Comet cluster, which I’d never seen or even heard of before.  It’s two closely-spaced star clusters with a tail of stars that could probably be mistaken for a comet in a smaller aperture.  It’s not in SkySafari as the False Comet Cluster, but its NGC number is 6231.  It’s too far south to see from home much at all – it only gets as high as 8.5° there.  I couldn’t really see Comet 41P either; I thought I saw where its nucleus might be, but I wasn’t sure.  Leo Triplet looked great.  After that, we wandered around some more, but the legendary 36” Dob that was up there was closed down for the night.  So we went back down to the lower field, getting a snack at the snack bar along the way.  Bob highly recommended the brisket burrito, which was delicious but messy, and it was kind of weird having brisket in a tortilla, lol.  Talk about Tex-Mex!

            
When we got back down, it was time to change targets.  I’d looked at the Needle Galaxy through Derek’s scope I think earlier that evening; I didn’t realize how bright and big it was!  So I made that my next target in the C11.  So this was a night for edge-on galaxies.  Both images came out great!
Date: 23 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: NGC 4565 Needle Galaxy
Camera: Nikon D5300
Telescope: Celestron C11
Accessories: f/6.3 focal reducer
Mount: Celeston CGE Pro
Guide scope: Orion ST-80
Guide camera: QHY5
Subframes: 14x360s (1h24m), ISO-1600
Darks: 15
Biases: 20
Flats: 20
Temperature: 39-41F
See on AstroBin

I’ve never gotten much detail on the disk in M104, but the dust lanes in the Needle Galaxy came out spectacularly for my DSLR!  And the colors!!
            
Now, I will pause here a moment – the nice dark backgrounds in all my pictures aren’t really that dark in the subs, I do have to trim off the left of the histogram a bit to get there, or use the light pollution tool in the Astronomy Tools toolkit for Photoshop I just bought (only $20 and you get the actual files, so I was able to install it on both my laptop and desktop for the price of one).  Here’s a subframe of the Needle:

But it’s still not bad!  And there were some clouds roving through, and it was pretty low. 
            
While images were going, I tagged along with Bob and Jim as they did their TSP observing list, and saw several things in Bob’s refractor: galaxy NGC 4631, NGC 4565 (the Needle Galaxy) M20 Trifid Nebula, M8 Lagoon Nebula, M17 Swan Nebula, galaxy NGC 4655, the Wild Duck Cluster (in Derek’s Dob), M7 Ptolemy’s Cluster (also in Derek’s), galaxy M83, and galaxy M101 Pinwheel Galaxy.  I think next year, I’m going to bring the C8 on the NexStar mount and do visual observing while the imaging is going.  I’d love to earn some pins.  I’m thinking about either getting crossbars and a cargo hold that goes on the roof, or maybe renting a little tow-behind trailer.  Derek bought one for like $1300, and he said he barely even noticed he was towing anything.  It’d give me a lot of extra space, and I’d pack the lighter stuff in there so that it’s easier to tow.  It’d be good practice for when I eventually get a camper, too. 
            
Earlier that evening, I had the D3100 set up for timelapse when Jim announced that the ISS was making a pass.  It was a long one too – SW to NW, and it got pretty high.  So I took a series of 30-second exposures.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet – maybe I can make some kind of hybrid image. 
            
Went to sleep at 6 AM again!  Ahhhhh yeahhhhh!

Monday, May 22, 2017

#83 - Monday, May 22, 2017 - Deep in the Dark of Texas (Texas Star Party Night 2)

Equipment: CGE Pro/C11/Orion ST-80/Nikon D5300/QHY5
Miqaela’s Celestron AVX/C8/Borg 76ED/Miqaela’s Nikon D3200/Miqaela’s ZWO ASI120MM

Yes, I got all of this equipment set up and running!  It actually more or less worked, unbelievably.  [I borrowed Miqaela's AVX mount and ZWO ASI120MM]

The Texas Star Party skies were not quite as dark as I’d imagined when the sun finally did set.  I could still pick out constellations without too much trouble (as opposed to losing the main stars in the sea of other stars), and I didn’t see any zodiacal light or anything.  But the Milky Way was incredible.  You couldn’t miss it.  I could just stare and drink it in for hours.  There was so little light pollution that the clouds were black.  It was amazing!  You couldn’t even tell they were there sometimes, just darkness dimming whatever you were trying to see through the eyepiece.  

I got the telescopes and aligned and polar aligned, and while I was waiting for the clouds to clear, I turned the C11 over to Jupiter to check it out.  I was actually able to focus it on Jupiter this time!  Usually I can’t because of bad air.  I looked at it with as high as a 13mm eyepiece; higher than that, it was too fuzzy.  You could see the four cloud bands!  Then, finally, I started imaging around midnight, once the clouds cleared out.  First on the list for the C11 was the Sunflower Galaxy.  I played it safe and did my usual 300-second subs, but dropped the ISO to 1600 at John’s recommendation – he said you can do higher DPI (dots per inch – you want 300 for printing) with a lower ISO.  
[Also, I finally came up with a standardized documentation scheme for my doc files this week - I'll start sharing the info that way in my posts.]
Date: 22 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: M63 Sunflower Galaxy
Camera: Nikon D5300
Telescope: Celestron C11
Accessories: f/6.3 focal reducer
Mount: Celestron CGE Pro
Guide scope: Orion ST-80
Guide camera: QHY5
Subframes: 18x300s (1h30m), ISO-1600
Darks: 24
Biases: 20
Flats: 20
Temperature: 47-59 F
See on AstroBin

While that was going, I experimented with the AVX to see how long I could track for.
  I realized earlier that evening that I only had one 2-inch connector for Schmidt-Cassegrains, so unless I wanted to deal with the extreme vignetting of using my 1.25-inch connector, I wasn’t going to be able to image on the C8.  I had plans to try out Miqaela’s ZWO AS120MM CCD camera on it later in the week looking at a planet, but I didn’t want to do too much too soon, especially since I was already running two rigs.  I just wanted to get things going first.  So I attached Miqaela’s Nikon D3200 to the Borg after aligning with the C8 and took some test frames to check tracking.  It wasn’t good.  I attempted to guide with the ZWO on the C8, but the tracking was bad enough that with the tiny FOV of the ZWO on the C8, the stars were moving across the screen before my eyes, and PHD was throwing a fit about it.  So I finally gave up and just mounted the D3200 piggyback on the C8 by threading a ¼-20 screw into it through the piggyback plate with like three washers so I could make it fit (thank goodness I keep all that extra crap in the white drawer Tupperware thing), threw my 55-200mm lens on it, and started imaging the target I’ve been dying to image all year – the Rho Ophiuchi Complex.  It includes Antares, globular cluster Messier 4, star ρ Oph of course, and some beautiful nebulosity in several different colors.  Set at 200mm, that wide of a FOV let me have two and a half minutes of tracking, so I took a frell ton of subframes on it and just imaged that all night.  Both images came out pretty well in processing!
Date: 22 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: Rho Ophiuchi Complex
Camera: Nikon D3200 (Miqaela's)
Telescope: 50-200mm lens at 200mm, piggybacked on Celestron C8
Accessories: N/A
Mount: Celestron Advanced VX
Guide scope: N/A
Guide camera: N/A
Subframes: 44x90s (1h6m), ISO-1600, f/5.6
Darks: 20
Biases: 18
Flats: 0
Temperature: 57F
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There was so little light pollution that the entirety of my histogram showing up in BackyardNikon for the Sunflower Galaxy (and all my other targets that week) was contained entirely in the first third, even at longer exposure times.  It was insane!  And I with pride put my light pollution filters away in their cases and didn’t touch them all week.  It was really nice not to have to white-balance stuff besides alignment in DeepSkyStacker.  Around 5 AM, I decided to snag some data on M16, the Eagle Nebula, while it was nice and high.  That came out well too, but kind of weird – there’s a bunch of blue in it that I’ve never captured before.
Date: 22 May 2017
Location: Prude Ranch, TX - Texas Star Party
Object: M16 Eagle Nebula
Camera: Nikon D5300
Telescope: Celestron C11
Accessories: f/6.3 focal reducer
Mount: Celestron CGE Pro
Guide scope: Orion ST-80
Guide camera: QHY5
Subframes: 12x300s (1h0m), ISO-1600
Darks: 40
Biases: 20
Flats: 20
Temperature: 48F
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Sometime, I’m going to borrow the ASI120MM again and do just the Pillars.  That’d be legit!
            
Unfortunately, I discovered that where I set up blocked the Milky Way until like after 1 AM or so – I didn’t realize how far southeast it would be!  I should have, that was my stupidity.  I’ll remember that for next year.  I also couldn’t see the collimation source that TSP set up on the top of a nearby hill – it has a star for collimating, and a special pattern for testing your resolution.  I’d love to do that.
            
Also while my images were going, and while there were still clouds around, I peaked through Derek’s Dob at more stuff.  I got my first glimpse of the massive globular cluster Omega Centauri, which is too low in the south to be seen from where I live, but just barely comes above the hills down in Texas!  It gets as high as 12 degrees.  It was incredible!  It contains millions of stars, possibly as many as 10 million.  We looked at it like every night.  I also got to see M104 Sombrero Galaxy, M51 Whirlpool Galaxy, globular cluster in Hercules M13, and then the Lagoon Nebula through my C8 while I was checking out the goto.  All fantastic, such detail against the dark sky!

I also set up my D3100 to take some timelapse of me, the scopes, and the rising Milky Way.  While the images were going, I also just took a bunch of single frames on the Milky Way, as well as a long-exposure timelapse and several images to attempt a mosaic on Photoshop.  It didn’t end up working, but I might try just using the central row (I did three rows) and seeing if it can do it, or find some software that’s better at it.  Here’s a single frame from the timelapse, ISO-3200, 15 seconds:
Milky Way from Texas, Nikon D3100, 15s, ISO-3200