Imaging off the beaten track

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Paul Ecclestone-Brown avatar
Hi all

In a recent imaging session I accidentally supplied the wrong coordinates to the acquisition software.  ( I supplied current epoch coords rather than J2000)


Strangely enough I didn't get an image of the target I was expecting, but I did get a rather lovely image of a cluster of small apparent size galaxies.

This set me off thinking - many of us target old favourites - well, because they are classics.  What if we were to devote some of our imaging time to imaging random  points in the sky in luminance (for mono imagers) or full broadband (for OSC imagers)?

I came up with the concept of Imaging off the beaten track, or Imaging with 5 degrees of freedom.

The rules are simple

Every so often acquire 1 hour of data from  a random piece of space within 5 degrees of your intended target for the evening, process it and post it to the Imaging off the beaten track group that I have just set up

If you want, please join the Imaging off the beaten track group and let's see what we can find

After Salvatore's comment below.... here is the link to the group  https://www.astrobin.com/groups/4168/imaging-off-the-beaten-track/

CS

Paul
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Salvatore Iovene avatar
Adding link to your group to make it easier to others:

https://www.astrobin.com/groups/4168/imaging-off-the-beaten-track/
andrea tasselli avatar
It would be nice to have a random coordinates generator for this specific purpose.
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Paul Ecclestone-Brown avatar
andrea tasselli:
It would be nice to have a random coordinates generator for this specific purpose.

Good Idea.  @Salvatore Iovene   can we embed code into this site or would I have to use my website?
Vitali avatar
Paul Ecclestone-Brown:
Every so often acquire 1 hour of data from a random piece of space within 5 degrees of your intended target for the evening, process it and post it to the Imaging off the beaten track group that I have just set up


This is a good idea. Looking at rare objects is definitely more enjoyable for me than looking at 1000th image of Andromeda galaxy Thanks to Aladin Sky Atlas it is usually possible to have at least some idea about the expected result. Nevertheless it is always fun to image something new.
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Salvatore Iovene avatar
Paul Ecclestone-Brown:
Good Idea.  @Salvatore Iovene   can we embed code into this site or would I have to use my website?


I don't think this fits anywhere on AstroBin at the moment, but a random generator of celestial coordinates should be fairly trivial to implement.
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Matthew avatar
I've been thinking about doing something like this for a little bit, especially since I just upgraded to a dedicated Astro-Camera and small refractor. I was worried about the chance of ending up with nothing at the end of the night, but I guess that's what makes it exciting!
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Paul Ecclestone-Brown avatar
@Matthew Eshaya  yep but if you just take 1 hour of subs. Or even half an hour, the rest of the night is still available for planned targets
Paul Ecclestone-Brown avatar
Update - I am finishing the coding of the random coordinates on the website - other commitments and clear sky permitting it should be up fairly soon