Elongated Stars – Not Resolved but have more clues

After fixing the Starshoot Autoguider Camera, I re-installed everything and did some tests again (i.e. took 60, 120, 180 and 240 subs while guiding). To my great deception, all the subs showed elongated stars again. However, the elongations were not oriented in the same direction (i.e. parrallel). In the upper left, the elongation was oriented toward the center of the frame. In the rest of the image most of the elongation was vertical. This got me suspecting that flexure was not the problem.

I then ran the image through CCD Inspector and got the following results from the curvature map…

From this result, I am begining to suspect that I have a tilt problem from the following sources:

  1. A mechanical problem (either with the Moonlite focuser, LPS Filter, Hotech Field Flattener or Generic T-Ring).
  2. A CMOS tilt (i.e. CMOS not perpendicular to the image train). After all, I did dissassembled my 350D to make the cooling modifications.

Next Steps: troubleshoot each element via elimination.

Waiting for the weather to clear.

Stay tune.

Clearskypix

You can call me Frank. I've been an amateur astronomer since 1988. In 2004, I purchased my first astrophotography equipment. In 2008, I built my own observatory. I cannot count the number of hours I have spent building, learning and trying. It as been a humbling experience that I hope will continue for a lifetime.

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