The Western Veil Complex in HOO

Just returned from the Oregon Star Party, wonderful dark skies for a week and the opportunity to try Voyager in extended sessions. It was a real pleasure. The Veil is one of my favorite targets and I had a new full frame camera (FLI KL4040) and could get most of the entire Veil in one frame with my Astro-Physics 130GTX at F/6.7. I wrote a simple script to start 20 minutes before astro dark to center, focus and start autoguiding. I let Voyager manage the meridian flip, which was important with the target so near the zenith. The sequence was to take 3-minute Ha and O3 subs until astro dawn, then stop and wait to take dawn sky flats (which I’d never used before, but with the Oregon skies so clear and even I wanted to give it a try). I did this two nights in a row and everything ran perfectly! I got 130 subs and 32 flats. I have a first cut at processing, this camera has some real calibration idiosyncrasies, but I’m learning and this is by far my best result yet.

Oh, to top it off, there is no cell coverage at the SP and all I had was text messaging via satellite. I had an issue come up and I was able to text Rowland and Leo and got support in real time via SMS messaging over the Iridium system. How cool! Thanks guys

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oppalala …show !!!
Marzio

Glad you had clear skies and most of all fun!
Nice shot Wayne - the low noise from a dark site is such a treat.

Cheers,
Rowland