On the night of March 13th and the morning of March 14th, stargazers in the Western Hemisphere got to witness a total lunar eclipse. I used this as an opportunity to do some imaging with the updated rig and the Seestars. I wanted to get some timelapse videos with the Seestars. So I set up the rig and the Seestars in preparation of the coming eclipse.
Once set up, I had the rig on one of my Kindle Fires (using ASIAir App), the S30 on my Android phone, and the S50 on the other Kindle Fire. I set up in my living room. With a full pot of coffee made, and Star Trek: Voyager playing in the background, I was all set.
Except for doing Hydrogen Alpha, I have never done any real narrowband imaging, so I decided to try my hand at it with M42. I already had some Hydrogen-Alpha data, and this time I wanted to get OIII and SII data. I decided, since I was breaking in the new configuration, to do 2×2 binning. I know this would under sample my data, but I was ok with this.
Using the ASIAir App, I was able to get good guiding and started integrating data. Meanwhile, the time-lapses on the lunar eclipse were progressing well.
During the eclipse, a fellow Ham Radio operator/Amateur Astronomer and I were talking on the radio during the eclipse. It was fun speaking with him during this event. Another amateur radio operator from Australia joined us and was able to see the end of the eclipse as the moon was rising in the east.
After the eclipse completed, and after getting some sleep, I started processing the data that I obtained. This was my first time processing narrowband, and my initial results were interesting.
It turned out pretty well, but the color balance was somewhat off. With the suggestion of some of my fellow JGAP astroimagers, I was able to pull more data out. I also did some more color balancing and this is my final result:
I got some Hydrogen-Alpha data prior to the eclipse of the Tadpole Nebula in Auriga.
Finally, during the eclipse, I got some LRGB data. Still need to work on this.
It was a great night and the Seestars did a great job. The new rig is also doing well. I created a video on Youtube about the night.
