SH 2-101 Tulip

Aug 6th, 2022

2 h 25 m

I made a few adjustments—you can't post photos processed on a bad monitor. Moving on, I tried shooting all night, but it didn’t work out. The diagonal mirror fogged up, so I had to warm it with a hairdryer, and I had to discard one hour of footage. I tried capturing the stars separately with a UV/IR filter—just 13 minutes—and the stars gained color (I should always do it this way). I only took 8 dark frames while it was getting dark, each at 180 seconds. This was my first time using NiNA all night, and I’m starting to like it more and more, especially the framing feature (I used a previous photo as a reference). I just loaded it in, and it helped me align the camera exactly. Autofocus and refocusing also worked well. The mount performed a meridian flip, recentered itself afterward, did a refocus, turned on guiding, and continued shooting.

Jul 31st, 2022

2 h 25 m

I continued, trying to shoot all night, but it didn't work out—the diagonal mirror fogged up, and I had to heat it with a hairdryer. I had to throw away 1 hour of footage. I tried to capture the stars separately with a UV/IR filter for just 13 minutes, and the stars gained color (I should always do it this way). I only took 8 dark frames while it was getting dark, each at 180 seconds. For the first time, I shot all night using NiNA, and I'm starting to like it more and more, especially the framing (I did it based on a previous photo)—I just inserted it, and it helped align the camera exactly. The automatic focusing and refocusing also worked well. The mount performed a meridian flip, then recentered itself, did a refocus, turned on guiding, and continued shooting.