M31 - Andromeda

Very light breeze, very good transparency. Some local LP from nearby campers but should not impact overall image quality.

Session started at approx XXXX pm until astronomical twilight at 05:04am

Created 4 lots of LRGB sequences, each filter 10 subs, at 180s.

Guiding Analysis - by Claude

File (night)	Guiding sessions (dither blocks)	Total guiding time	Frames (dropped)	RA / Dec / Total RMS	Notes
2026-10-03 (20:33→23:37)	8	171.1 min (2.9h)	3454 (0, 0%)	0.32–0.54” / 0.02–0.50” / 0.18–0.73”	Clean all night, zero dropped frames. Target stayed on the West pier the whole session (Dec ≈41.4°, HA –4.37→–1.70) — no meridian flip needed.
2026-10-04 (00:03→04:39+)	12	260.2 min (4.3h)	7723 (10, 0.1%)	0.36” / 0.66” / 0.75”	Mostly very clean. One brief, mild disruption around a meridian flip . File ends mid-session (abrupt cutoff).

Breezy during the day, lots of cloud cover and scudding clouds. No rain. Skies cleared for around 19:00, breeze also dropped.

Overnight low of approx 12°

Imaging session started at 20:00 but paused at 20:58 due to clouds. Restarted at 02:22 until astronomical dawn just after 05:00

Guiding Analysis - by Claude

File (night)	Guiding sessions (dither blocks)	Total guiding time	Frames (dropped)	RA / Dec / Total RMS	Notes
2026-10-03 (20:33→23:37)	8	171.1 min (2.9h)	3454 (0, 0%)	0.32–0.54” / 0.02–0.50” / 0.18–0.73”	Clean all night, zero dropped frames. Target stayed on the West pier the whole session (Dec ≈41.4°, HA –4.37→–1.70) — no meridian flip needed.
2026-10-04 (00:03→04:39+)	12	260.2 min (4.3h)	7723 (10, 0.1%)	0.36” / 0.66” / 0.75” (excl. flip blip below)	Mostly very clean. One brief, mild disruption around a meridian flip (see below). File ends mid-session (abrupt cutoff).
2026-10-04 (21:27→21:29)	2	11.6 min	344 (0, 0%)	0.28” / 0.34” / 0.45”	Short — aborted after ~11 min, mid-session, no clean stop. Same evening the Esprit rig also aborted after only 3.3 min (21:36–21:38) — the two independent rigs cutting out within ~10 minutes of each other points to a shared cause, most likely weather.
2026-10-06 (02:12→05:14)	6	171.7 min (2.9h)	5096 (2, 0%)	0.27–0.54” / 0.48–0.97” / 0.52–1.11”	Clean, only 2 dropped frames, and this one does end cleanly with a logged “Guiding Ends” — unlike the Esprit’s own Oct 6 log the same night, which cuts off abruptly. Worth a look given both are ASIAir units.

Very breezy day, wind speeds up to around 25mph, this continued throughout the night.

Session started approx 21:00 and went right through to 05:26

Guiding Analysis - by Claude

File (night)	Guiding sessions (dither blocks)	Total guiding time	Frames (dropped)	RA / Dec / Total RMS	Notes
2026-10-09 (20:14 → 05:27+)	23 (14 full-length, 9 short restarts)	512 min (8.5 h)	15,193 (91, 0.6%)	All blocks: 3.18″ / 2.89″ / 4.30″ (0.75 / 0.68 / 1.02 px). Per full block: 1.4–8.0″ / 1.8–4.3″ / 2.2–8.3″ (0.32–1.89 / 0.41–1.01 / 0.52–1.97 px)	Long night with a meridian flip (West → East). Dropped frames are clustered, and the file ends abruptly mid-session.

Key findings

• RA bursts before the flip.
  • Most of the night RA is about 1.4–2″ RMS. In five windows it jumps to 6–13″ RMS, with excursions up to about 44″.
  • These windows are at 22:30–22:45 (block 9), 22:49–22:55 and 23:15–23:20 (block 10), 00:09–00:21 (block 12) and 00:33–00:35 (block 15).
  • The guide star’s brightness (mass and SNR) was steady throughout, so this isn’t cloud or a fading star.
  • The log can’t tell me the cause. Wind, a cable or balance issue, or mount behaviour approaching the meridian are all possible.
  • These bursts put the West-side blocks at RA 4.0″ / Dec 2.1″ / Total 4.6″.
• Meridian flip at about 00:35–00:42. Guiding stopped at 00:35:15 and resumed on the East side at 00:42:47, a 7.5-minute gap. The first East block settled at about 4.7″ total.
• East side is steadier, but Dec is worse. After the flip RA calms to about 2.1″, but Dec rises to about 3.4″. Total on the East side is 4.0″ (blocks 17–23), against 4.6″ on the West. Dec being the worse axis after the flip is the same pattern as on your Oct 6 WO61 log.
• Different guide star after the flip. Star mass jumps from about 630 to about 3,400, with SNR around 41 (it was about 17 before), so a different, brighter star was selected.
• Dropped frames cluster in restarts. Of the 91 dropped frames, 72 fall in the short restart blocks: 10 each in blocks 3, 4, 5 and 13, and 32 in block 14. The 14 full-length blocks together drop only 19 of 14,447 frames (0.13%). All the drops are “Star lost – mass changed”.
• Dither settling often fails. PHD2 logged 36 “Settling failed” events against 130 “Settling complete”, so the mount frequently didn’t settle within the timeout after a dither.
• Calibration. The first block ran with an RA rate of 1.695, and every later block with 1.350. The logged calibration step is a placeholder, so it’s worth checking that the calibration is sensible.

Very similar to the Friday night, breezy conditions made it feel decidedly colder than the 9° recorded.

I omitted to keep the guiding logs so no analysis provided.