Observation by Grant Privett: Planetary nebula

Uploaded by

Grant Privett

Observer

Grant Privett

Observed

2018 Feb 16 - 22:33

Uploaded

2018 Mar 21 - 22:37

Objects

NGC2438
M46

Planetarium overlay









Constellation

Puppis

Field centre

RA: 07h41m
Dec: -14°42'
Position angle: +83°05'

Field size

0°54' × 0°33'

Equipment
  • Celestron 11" RASA
  • Starlight H18
  • Paramount MEII
Exposure

5x60s

Location

Wiltshire

Target name

NGC2438 and NGC2437

Title

Planetary nebula

About this image

Caught these quite low in the sky over a building site. I only took 5 frames as it was already starting to go behind a bush. Would have been nice to go for the outer envelope.

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Comments
Dr Andrew Smith
Dr Andrew Smith, 2018 Mar 22 - 16:37 UTC

What is it about TSX controllng the camera you don't like? I use two instances to control 3 cameras using java script sent via a Python program with out any issues. 

Regards Andrew

Grant Privett
Grant Privett, 2018 Mar 24 - 16:41 UTC

Initially - about 4 years ago - I didnt do it because TSX only recognised the camera via ASCOM and I didnt want to install that for one bit of kit. Then there was a responsiveness issue with TSX, as on the laptop (Latitude E4310) at that  time, it sometimes took 5-8 secs to respond to a single button press (never got to the bottom of that) so I didnt want add to its burden. Finally, I prefer my interface - the TSX one seemed a tad clunky and the scaling options I use didnt seem available. So, it was a variety of things and, it was easiest to add the telescope control and satellite selection to my existing camera control interface. The code is written in VB6 - I've used VB for various non-cpu-intensive projects since it appeared (1996?).

Machines are faster now and with more CPU/memory, in addition to which, Starlight cameras are now directly supported by TSX, but I do still prefer my interface. Unsurprisingly, as I wrote it for my own use, it seems fairly intuitive to me :)

Sometime, I must convert it to Python.

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