Great Night for EAA and Imaging with New QHY183c Camera

M27 – 90×30 sec, QHY183c at -25C, Gain 30, UHC filter, TV-85 at F/5.6.
M27 – Close Crop Detail at 100% Res. 90×30 sec, QHY183c at -25C, Gain 30, UHC, TV-85 @ F/5.6.
Eastern Veil Nebula – 103×30 sec, QHY183c at -25C, Gain 30, Offset 25, UHC filter, TV-85 at F/5.6.
M31 – 90×30 sec, QHY183c at -25C, Gain 30, UHC filter, TV-85 at F/5.6.
M33 – 30×30 sec, QHY183c at -25C, Gain 30, UHC filter, TV-85 at F/5.6.
M45 – 100×30 sec, QHY183c at -25C, Gain 30, UHC filter, TV-85 at F/5.6.
M42 – 40×30 sec, QHY183c at -25C, Gain 30, UHC filter, TV-85 at F/5.6.

What a night!  My new QHY183c astro camera worked really well once I had it hooked to a computer that could handle the 20MP downloads and live stacking requirements of SharpCap 3.2.  I used my older  Panasonic ToughBook for controlling the scope and the guiding while another laptop, a Toshiba i7-based unit, was used for image acquisition and live-stacking.  I was able to bag six objects with this setup before I had to turn in and get some sleep.

(BTW, EAA is Electronically Assisted Astronomy.  It is a way to “observe” from a light-polluted metro area with real-time captures and strong LP filters on a computer using highly sensitive astro cameras.)

SharpCap 3.2 works really well on the faster machine but not on the ToughBook.  The USB 3 port and it’s 2.5Ghz processor are just not powerful enough, I guess.  I will have to tuneup the Toshiba to do all the stuff the ToughBook was doing and live-stack with SharpCap, all at the same time.  Hopefully, I’ll take care of that soon.

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