Galactic Nuclei Are Not Stars

Sequence Generator
1

While trying to image M104 last night, SGP attempted to autofocus. However, it apparently thought the nucleus of M104 is a star because it encircled it and gave it an HFR value. Needless to say, this doesn’t work very well because galactic nuclei are extended objects.

Not surprisingly, the autofocus went very poorly.

How can this be avoided?

Thanks,
Manning

2

Unfortunately telling the difference between a large round fuzzy thing and a small round fuzzy thing is quite hard. If you can turn on auto focus packs (in the auto focus settings) we can try and tweak things some. However if it’s detecting it as a single or a “handful” of stars it is likely ok provided it’s also picking a large number of stars.

Thanks,
Jared

image

3 Likes