EAA Session of 6/13 through 6/16/2024 0300-0630 UTC Through Vixen VMC260L 10.6 inch Telescope

EAA is "Electronically-Assisted Astronomy".  This type of astronomy uses a video camera at the telescope instead of your eyes.  The camera live-streams and stacks a set of short exposures of just a few seconds each repeated over a few minutes of time for live-viewing on a pc screen or LED monitor instead of through the eyepiece of your telescope.

The image viewed on-screen is an accumulation of collected photons equal to the total time of the video stream.  The live-stream capture software collects more and more photons as you watch and gradually builds up the on-screen details and color depth of the object you're viewing until you quickly get an image with good detail, low noise and good color-depth.

You also have the option in the capture software to save the accumulated stack as a single master frame for a permanent record of your observing session or later post-processing if desired.

Today's modern CMOS chips used in astronomy video cameras produce very low electronic noise in the images, have very high sensitivity (QE) and are particularly well-suited to exploit this type of imaging strategy. 

EAA is not designed or intended to replace the great details and color depth of true long-exposure deep-sky imaging and lengthy post-processing.  But EAA observing is perfect for light-polluted observing areas that may not work as well for long-exposure imaging, and will quickly show much more deep-sky detail than you could ever see visually through the eyepiece.

Vixen VMC260L 10.6 inch Modified Klevtsov Cassegrain Telescope:

Rainbow Astro RST-300 Mount with Supermount CYG54 Carbon Fiber Tripod:

Imaging and Telescope Equipment Used for the June 13-16, 2024 EAA Observing Session:

1. Telescope::  Vixen VMC260L f/11.5 Modified Klevtsov Cassegrain Optical Tube, used at reduced focal length of 2080mm and f/8 focal ratio
2. Focal Reducer:  Astro-Physics CCDT67 0.67x Focal Reducer
3. Mount:  Rainbow Astro RST-300 Mount, Used in EQ Mode, mounted on Supermount CYG54GRDLS Carbon Fiber Tripod.  No autoguiding was used for the Live Display images or saved image stacks.
4. Image Scale with Astro-Physics Focal Reducer:  0.48 arc-seconds/pixel
5. Camera: ZWO ASI071MC color video camera with TEC chip-cooling enabled on camera at +5 degrees Celsius, shooting in 16-bit .RAW file mode @ Bin 1x1, using full chip size of 4944 x 3284 pixels
   Image Acquisition and Live-Display Frame Stacking Software:  SharpCap v.4.1 64-bit, set to save individual linear RAW16 frames to be used for post-processing enhancement and also "save-as-is" Live Display screen .FITS images with just a screen stretch adjusted from inside SharpCap's Histogram tool.
6. Mount-Control Planetarium and Hardware-Control Programs:  ASCOM Device Hub, Hubo-i ASCOM Rainbow Astro Mount Driver, Cart Du Ciel V.4.3 Planetarium Software with Telescope GoTo
7. Filters:  Baader UV/IR Cutoff Filter Optimized for CMOS Camera Chips.  No Dual-Band or other Narrowband filters were used for these sessions.
8. Sky Conditions:  Bortle Class 4 light pollution.  Ambient temperature:  74 degrees F.

• Image Exposures:
  All images tonight used an 8 or 10 second exposure for each sub-frame at camera Gain setting of 90 (Unity Gain for the ASI071MC-Pro camera).
  Total stack times were 5-10 minutes depending on surface brightness of object.
  Master Dark and Master Dark-Flat Noise Reduction frames were used to noise-reduce the Live Display and were also used in the post-processing images displayed below.

1. Post-Processing Software Post-Processing Software for the Enhanced Versions of the EAA Images Shown Below:  PixInsight with WBPP using full noise reduction and stacking routines, RC Astro BlurXTerminator and NoiseXTerminator
2. Location: Little Rock, AR., El. 600ft
   Time and Date:  0200-0600 GMT, June 12th-16th, 2024

The EAA Images captured below are all from the June 12-16 observing sessions.  (Image information courtesy of Wikipedia.com).
Open link at top left of each image to see detailed historical and science data for each astronomical object.

M12 Globular Cluster from EAA stack, PixInsight-enhanced.  Click on image for 4K Resolution:	M12 EAA Non-Enhanced Image Capture from Live On-Screen Display with No Post-Processing:
M92 Globular Cluster from EAA stack, PixInsight-enhanced.  Click on image for 4K Resolution:	M92 EAA Non-Enhanced Image Capture from Live On-Screen Display with No Post-Processing:

Page Last Updated:  6/28/2024
©  Wade Van Arsdale