2nd EAA session with SharpCap

I decided to go out to take advantage of the first clear (and moonless) night in weeks. I started setting up around 9am before it was completely dark.

This time, I only brought out the Windows PC. My plan was to do everything with SharpCap.

I started with the focus assistant: it did not really make things easier or better than zooming on a bright star.

Next I tried the polar align tool but could not get to work at whole so I ended up aligning first centering the telescope on the platform and then by rotating the platform  until it was on pointing to Polaris.

After that I use the plate solving / push to assistant. This time it gave me alt/az instructions - because I configured my location in the application. I pushed to M51 Whirlpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici and I did a live stack. I am still getting lost with all the image control options.

Then I tried the flat assistant: it  auto adjusts gain and exposure and provides some feedback about the histogram, once it greenlights the flat capture, one can start a flat capture - not sure why it does not do that automatically. I should have started with darks but did not want to do them at this point because it would mean taking the camera out and then having to redo the focus and the flat frames.

My next target was M101, but at that point I noticed a bad drift. Upon examination, I realized that the sand paper tap around the axis was coming off and getting stuck. Maybe, I need to think about getting a different EQ platform.

I decided to call it a night and brought everything back in the house.

Afterwards I tried to stack the captured single frames (and the flat) in Deep Sky Stacker but couldn't get it to load the images. Maybe I should have saved them as FITS file instead of PNG??

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy - 111x2.85s