Last night I spent many hours fiddling with various running parameters, and capturing data for NGC6888. First, the fiddling..

I evaluated my PEC curve, both by running an analysis cycle with PEC on, and comparing it to a run with PEC off. PEC on was better, at less than 2 arc sec total PE, compared to about 2.5 PE with PEC off. I'll try keeping PEC on for my imaging runs now to see whether it seems to make any difference to my guiding graphs. 

Next came polar alignment. Again, alignment was good when checking it with the 98flt, with DEC being about 1 arc-min off, and RA being about 2 arc-min off. Both are well within tolerances. 

For imaging, I set up a couple of hours L run on NGC 6888. Everything worked well, and I have some good L data. When I started to run RGB, my guiding errors jumped up to over 1 pixel, when previously it was about .1-.25. Its not the first time that's happened, and I'll need to find a solution to it, as I don't know if it's a CCDAP or Maxim problem. 

When I was about done for the night I did a quick sample of the Ring Nebula and the Dumbell Nebula. The ring was absolutely tiny at the focal length of the 98flt, and certainly not worth imaging. The Dumbell on the other hand, while small, isn't too small to image. I'll have to give that a shot and see how it turns out, especially where it's colorful. The last thing I too a quick look at was the Trifid Nebula, which was again small, but worth imaging. 

I did experiment with Saturn briefly on the C14 and using a Barlow, but I'm not happy with focusing... Collimation also looked out again. Perhaps mirror locks would resolve that for me.