Another 1.5 hours of luminosity data was gathered the night of February 15th together with several hours of color data. I published an initial version of the luminosity data on Astrobin, and then reprocessed it based on some suggestions from Hytham (Thanks!). I also used a different form of noise reduction (MLT) instead of my usual (TGV Denoise). While I prefer to do my noise reduction as my last step, in this case, I have to say that MLT did a much better job of it.
Rick over on Cloudy Nights pointed out that ARP 94 is not the only train wreck in the image. Much smaller and further away galaxies PGC 30397 and PGC 1605532 are also interacting. If you look closely at the image, you can see a tidal plume headed to the left from the upper portion of PGC 30397.
Here are luminosity, color, and annotated versions:
Rick over on Cloudy Nights pointed out that ARP 94 is not the only train wreck in the image. Much smaller and further away galaxies PGC 30397 and PGC 1605532 are also interacting. If you look closely at the image, you can see a tidal plume headed to the left from the upper portion of PGC 30397.
Here are luminosity, color, and annotated versions:
The natural course of things when you get new equipment is to be blown away with how wonderful it is. Then you start finding some issues. And finally, you begin to learn how to deal with those issues.
With my Paramount MyT, I began to notice that although my tracking was normally very good, RA guiding was considerably worse near the Zenith. One night it was so bad I was getting RMS errors of as high as 1.5 arc-seconds. That is completely unusable when you have an image scale of .93 arc-seconds like I do with my AT8RC and the CCDT67 reducer.
My AT8RC is not completely neutral in balance because the off axis guider is somewhat off center to the left, the stepper motor for the Moonlite is to the left, and worst of all, the 50mm finder I used for a while before I got my OAG was also to the left. For the most part the Atlas dealt with that amount of in balance just fine.
However, the MyT is best when completely in balance. I removed the finder and rebalanced. Fortunately, when tested RA guiding was quite good.
With my Paramount MyT, I began to notice that although my tracking was normally very good, RA guiding was considerably worse near the Zenith. One night it was so bad I was getting RMS errors of as high as 1.5 arc-seconds. That is completely unusable when you have an image scale of .93 arc-seconds like I do with my AT8RC and the CCDT67 reducer.
My AT8RC is not completely neutral in balance because the off axis guider is somewhat off center to the left, the stepper motor for the Moonlite is to the left, and worst of all, the 50mm finder I used for a while before I got my OAG was also to the left. For the most part the Atlas dealt with that amount of in balance just fine.
However, the MyT is best when completely in balance. I removed the finder and rebalanced. Fortunately, when tested RA guiding was quite good.