{"id":58,"date":"2020-01-11T18:17:37","date_gmt":"2020-01-11T18:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/texasstarcave.com\/?p=58"},"modified":"2020-09-17T16:01:56","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T16:01:56","slug":"astrophotography-best-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/texasstarcave.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/11\/astrophotography-best-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"Astrophotography Best Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Capture – Calibrate – Stack – Edit<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Use a a planetarium app or star chart to plan your imaging session.\u00a0 Ensure sufficient hard drive space, power, horizon and tree clearance, etc.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Allow the telescope to reach ambient temperature before attempting to focus.\u00a0 Ensure there are no tube currents.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Study the AstroClock<\/a> to determine best cloud cover, best seeing, and whether dew control may be needed.Polar align.\u00a0 PoleMaster<\/a> and SharpCap<\/a> work well for polar alignment.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Point the telescope north with counterweights down, and apply power.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Connect AP computer to the main camera, mount, and focuser.\u00a0 Start cooling the camera. Connect Guiding system to guide camera and start Loop function.<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Slew to a bright star near the first target.\u00a0 Bright stars have a common name (e.g. Vega, Sirius, etc.), or are identified starting with alpha, beta, or gamma (e.g. alpha Lyra).<\/span><\/li>\n
  7. Capture the sky wherever the telescope is pointing, plate solve, and synchronize.\u00a0 Reslew to the bright star.<\/span><\/li>\n
  8. Insert the filter to be used for this target, fit the Bahtinov<\/a> mask in place, and focus.\u00a0 Remove the Bahtinov mask.<\/span><\/li>\n
  9. Either slew to the object, or use \u201cGoto++\u201d in APT<\/a> to locate the object with high accuracy.<\/span><\/li>\n
  10. With the Guiding<\/a> system, choose a star (ALT-S) and start guiding.<\/span><\/li>\n
  11. Set the gain for this target (recommend Unity Gain; see manufacture\u2019s specification).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  12. Try various exposures to find one where the left lump of the histogram is just clear of the left histogram edge.<\/span><\/li>\n
  13. Check that guiding is working well.<\/span><\/li>\n
  14. Start imaging session of 40 to 60 exposures at best exposure.<\/span><\/li>\n
  15. Monitor guiding, star focus, cloud cover, dew, and mount; adjust as needed.<\/span><\/li>\n
  16. When finished, disconnect hardware in applications, close applications, turn off equipment, and disconnect cables.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Capture – Calibrate – Stack – Edit   Use a a planetarium app or star chart to plan your imaging session.\u00a0 Ensure sufficient hard drive . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[18,50,49,39],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astrophotography-capture","category-astrophotography-editing","tag-astrophotography","tag-bahtinov-mask","tag-polemaster","tag-sharpcap"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/texasstarcave.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/texasstarcave.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/texasstarcave.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/texasstarcave.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/texasstarcave.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/texasstarcave.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86,"href":"https:\/\/texasstarcave.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/texasstarcave.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/texasstarcave.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/texasstarcave.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}