First light - IC410

20:26 7/3/2009 UTC

Atik 4000LE First Light! Weather was awful and I had some serious hassle with my gear. First of all I set my telescope in a position where trees cut the exposure short and then there was something wrong with PC charger. I burned some 5 fuses while debugging the setup. And if that wasn't enough I forgot to set the mount hand unit to slow speed and screwed up 30 minutes of valuable exposure. Anyway I got my first image with a CCD and this was bad enough weather to spend time on practising. Nothing spectacular in the image but first is a first!

NGC/IC Object List:
NGC1893 open cluster RA:05h22m44.1 Dec:+33°24m'43" BMag: , IC 410
IC410 open cluster RA:05h22m44.1 Dec:+33°24m'43" BMag: , NGC 1893

Camera: Atik Instruments 4000LE | Telescope: Skywatcher ED80 Pro 80mm f7.5 refractor, William Optics 0.8x focal reducer | Mount: Vixen GP-D2, Boxdoerfer PowerFlex MTS-3SLP drive controller | Filters: Astronomik H-alpha 13nm 2" | Guiding: The Imaging Source DMK 21AU04.AS CCD camera, Orion ShortTube 80mm f5 refractor, Stark-Labs PHD Guiding | Exposure: Ha: 3x600s (30m) f6 CCD @ -10°C | Software: CCDWare CCDStack, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Artemis Capture | Location: 60°31'N 26°52'E (Koivula/Kotka,FI) | Image Field: 1.808 x 1.809 degrees | Image Center: Ra 05h22m11s Dec +33°23'50" | Target altitude in the beginning of the exposure 43°