SESSION 18 · 10/26 · PARTLY WORKED
The helper ran out halfway through
Codex rebuilt a lot of rig-ui during the day and helped drive the evening until its usage limit cut it off at 20:04. I shot the 7x4 mosaic myself at 20:28. It ran to 25 panels, but the grid sat too high and missed a limb, the SV205 repeated frames, and tracking only half held. Omega Centauri came out black. Processed the next day into a good, cropped half Moon.
127 Mak on the AZ-GTi after dark (the GTe was on the house WiFi in the afternoon), SV205 in the Mak. rig-ui, heavily reworked by Codex during the day. Written up on 18 October from the Codex transcript, the rig-ui log inside it and the files.
The day. Camera tests on the landscape from 14:38: clouds, the flag, the waterfront. Five record starts at 16:52 left empty files (since fixed). At 18:11 a full-size run on the green channel marker across the water, for focus. The capture files are all named "Jupiter": that was rig-ui's default target, nothing to do with the planet.
Dusk, the Moon. Limb runs from 19:07; one at 19:39 right after a 156-degree hand move. Calibrate failed three times, losing the image each time. Tap-to-centre refused with no transform. The mosaic preflight refused at 19:24 with a 6.6-degree mismatch, because the alignment model blended points from two different nights; Codex switched it to the latest point and Plan passed at 19:41: 7 by 4, 25 panels.
20:04, Codex hit its usage limit in the middle of fixing centre-on-limb. I did the rest by hand: search, a failed centre, Plan, and Shoot at 20:28, exposure held at 85 ms.
The mosaic. 25 panels of 150 frames at full size, 3.2 GB each, done by 21:10. Only about 60 of each 150 frames turned out to be distinct (the SV205 recorder repeats them) and the Moon drifted up to 370 pixels during a panel, because tracking only half held. Rows 5 and 6 were empty sky, and the grid never reached the right-hand limb. rig-ui's own stitch could not use it; the new pipeline written on the 18th could (session 19).
Omega Centauri, 21:20. Go to worked; two runs of twelve 1-second frames, every one black, and the plate solves found no stars. Whether the exposure never applied or nothing was in the field is not known. A go to back to the Moon was stopped by Freedom-Find at 21:23, and that was the night.
| time | run | size, frames | result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18:11 | channel marker | 3264x2160, 76 | stacked, soft |
| 20:24 | terminator focus checks | 3264x2160, 151 x2 | sharp |
| 20:28 | mosaic 7x4, 25 panels | 150 each | processed 18 Oct |
| 21:20 | Omega Centauri | 2 x 12 x 1 s | all black |
What I got wrong
- Shot the mosaic without centring. The search and centre failed and I shot anyway; the grid missed a limb and two rows went to sky.
- Leaned on an assistant with a usage limit for the whole evening.
Left for next time
- Tracking that holds for a whole panel, or fewer frames per panel.
- Find out why Omega Centauri was black.
