Titan mount back to business !

After several months wihout observation as my Losmandy Titan mount was getting worse and worse in pointing & guiding, I got couple of days ago my refurbished mount and installed it last night. It run smoothly, I really enjoy this "new" mount!!!

It took me some time to reassemble and polar aligne the mount. I did a simplified model with 3 stars only but it is working ok. Guiging is smooth and next test should be a 5-6 hours autoguiding on the same object (BW Vul would be a nice target for this; CY Aqr too?).

I also adjusted the scope & counter weigh balance by removing the motors and "sensing" the force by turning the gear manually - it seemed to work very well and reduce the "motor lags" I had at the beginning.

It also took time to complete Prism v10 installation on my new PC. I adjusted the autoguiding parameters:
-increased the maximum shift to continue to next exposure (1 pixel by default; I did put 10 pixels)
-use full frame for guiding and not a cropped window so I could see the full image (but I may change this later)
-reduce the strength on both axis from 0.7 to 0.3
-set the guide star finding area to 100 pixels wide
-set the X/Y consigned position of course
-set the cross grid on the image (I kept the guiding image without MirrorX or Mirror Y to avoid trouble with the grid; image is inverted E/W but it is not critical for the observations)

New PC for the observatory

 Refurbished Losmandy Titan mount, now reinstalled in the dome

The eShel was surprisingly still in good focus/position so I didn't touch it. I did a quick session on P Cygni but sky was getting cloudy so I didn't pursue other targets.

Observing P Cygni with the eShel spectrograph

Comparison of P Cygni spectrum to last year and two years ago spectra

Note the better resolution on P Cygni. I checked the logs and the Halpha resolution has been improved by 40% (one line measurement in Prism) or 26% (order 34, with Halpha, measurement by ISIS) with better echelle spectrograph focus:

Octobre 2016:
=============
Raie ordre 34: X=584.870p ±0.021 Y=873.632p ±0.024 FWHML= 5.45p FWHMH= 4.76p

Resolution :
Order #31 :  FWHM = 4.74  -  Dispersion = .195 A/pixel  -  R = 7849.6
Order #32 :  FWHM = 4.97  -  Dispersion = .187 A/pixel  -  R = 7545.1
Order #33 :  FWHM = 4.50  -  Dispersion = .185 A/pixel  -  R = 8159.9
Order #34 :  FWHM = 4.24  -  Dispersion = .179 A/pixel  -  R = 8684.3
Order #35 :  FWHM = 3.85  -  Dispersion = .174 A/pixel  -  R = 9577.6
Order #36 :  FWHM = 3.56  -  Dispersion = .169 A/pixel  -  R = 10380.5
Order #37 :  FWHM = 3.42  -  Dispersion = .163 A/pixel  -  R = 10852.7
Order #38 :  FWHM = 3.48  -  Dispersion = .159 A/pixel  -  R = 10660.6
Order #39 :  FWHM = 3.23  -  Dispersion = .158 A/pixel  -  R = 11260.1
Order #40 :  FWHM = 3.41  -  Dispersion = .152 A/pixel  -  R = 10836.0
Order #41 :  FWHM = 3.31  -  Dispersion = .149 A/pixel  -  R = 11112.9
Order #42 :  FWHM = 3.33  -  Dispersion = .145 A/pixel  -  R = 11033.4
Order #43 :  FWHM = 3.10  -  Dispersion = .145 A/pixel  -  R = 11582.7
Order #44 :  FWHM = 3.19  -  Dispersion = .140 A/pixel  -  R = 11440.3
Order #45 :  FWHM = 3.42  -  Dispersion = .134 A/pixel  -  R = 10866.1
Order #46 :  FWHM = 3.59  -  Dispersion = .133 A/pixel  -  R = 10204.1
Order #47 :  FWHM = 3.46  -  Dispersion = .129 A/pixel  -  R = 10733.1
Order #48 :  FWHM = 3.62  -  Dispersion = .126 A/pixel  -  R = 10274.2
Order #49 :  FWHM = 4.28  -  Dispersion = .126 A/pixel  -  R = 8509.3
Order #50 :  FWHM = 4.42  -  Dispersion = .119 A/pixel  -  R = 8557.2
Order #51 :  FWHM = 4.75  -  Dispersion = .115 A/pixel  -  R = 8043.9
Order #52 :  FWHM = 5.37  -  Dispersion = .115 A/pixel  -  R = 7013.3
Order #53 :  FWHM = 5.49  -  Dispersion = .113 A/pixel  -  R = 6846.3


Août 2017:
==========
Raie ordre 34: X=586.435p ±0.011 Y=863.402p ±0.013 FWHML= 3.64p FWHMH= 2.98p

Resolution :
Order #31 :  FWHM = 4.16  -  Dispersion = .194 A/pixel  -  R = 8980.8
Order #32 :  FWHM = 3.81  -  Dispersion = .187 A/pixel  -  R = 9845.8
Order #33 :  FWHM = 3.49  -  Dispersion = .185 A/pixel  -  R = 10526.8
Order #34 :  FWHM = 3.34  -  Dispersion = .180 A/pixel  -  R = 10956.4
Order #35 :  FWHM = 3.29  -  Dispersion = .174 A/pixel  -  R = 11217.7
Order #36 :  FWHM = 3.09  -  Dispersion = .170 A/pixel  -  R = 11888.8
Order #37 :  FWHM = 3.44  -  Dispersion = .164 A/pixel  -  R = 10776.8
Order #38 :  FWHM = 3.55  -  Dispersion = .160 A/pixel  -  R = 10401.9
Order #39 :  FWHM = 3.32  -  Dispersion = .158 A/pixel  -  R = 10970.7
Order #40 :  FWHM = 3.64  -  Dispersion = .153 A/pixel  -  R = 10060.0
Order #41 :  FWHM = 3.66  -  Dispersion = .149 A/pixel  -  R = 10060.4
Order #42 :  FWHM = 3.96  -  Dispersion = .145 A/pixel  -  R = 9293.9
Order #43 :  FWHM = 3.32  -  Dispersion = .146 A/pixel  -  R = 10810.0
Order #44 :  FWHM = 3.60  -  Dispersion = .140 A/pixel  -  R = 10146.0
Order #45 :  FWHM = 3.51  -  Dispersion = .135 A/pixel  -  R = 10487.7
Order #46 :  FWHM = 3.46  -  Dispersion = .133 A/pixel  -  R = 10575.9
Order #47 :  FWHM = 3.45  -  Dispersion = .128 A/pixel  -  R = 10787.6
Order #48 :  FWHM = 3.38  -  Dispersion = .126 A/pixel  -  R = 10996.2
Order #49 :  FWHM = 3.76  -  Dispersion = .125 A/pixel  -  R = 9711.4
Order #50 :  FWHM = 3.85  -  Dispersion = .119 A/pixel  -  R = 9803.9
Order #51 :  FWHM = 4.16  -  Dispersion = .115 A/pixel  -  R = 9195.6
Order #52 :  FWHM = 4.79  -  Dispersion = .115 A/pixel  -  R = 7836.8
Order #53 :  FWHM = 5.14  -  Dispersion = .113 A/pixel  -  R = 7315.4

The Belle Etoile observatory is back for observations!