[APML]: 'Experiment 2' Results

["Philip Perkins" <philip@astrocruise.com>]

Well, some preliminary results...  on Friday night we had our first clear
sky this dark period so I took my first pics with the 'Experiment 2' film
(this was Batch 030, 1hr pre-hyper in a vacuum of -27 in, at 50 C) 

The film looked very nice. It recorded a density of 0.09 over base. Normally
I record 0.09 over base for my standard 7.5 hour process, so the fog level
looked exactly right. I did a direct comparison of density levels between my
'normal' 7.5 hr process and the 'pre-hyper' process film. There was the very
slightest difference, hardly recordable, and certainly well within normal
tolerance limits between hypered batches. My conclusion thus far - I record
no material increase in fog that occurs due to the 1 hr vacuum pre-hyper
process. 

I have uploaded an image taken with the 'Experiment 2' film. This is a wide
angle (300mm) shot of the NGC 7000 area. Conditions were not that great -
transparency was poor, but on the upside the air was very calm and the NGC
7000 area was close to the zenith.  This is my first ever attempt at this
target - I'd greatly appreciate a critique of how this image recorded faint
detail, etc ... there is full information on exposure details on the page...

http://www.astrocruise.com/ngc7000.htm

Last night I took two further shots, both wide angle - one of the IC 1318 
region and one of M31 - I'll upload these sometime in the next week.

These results will not be in any way quantitative, and anyway, a 1hr 
pre-hyper is hardly a big change to the standard process! :-) However a 2 hr 
pre-hyper is more significant, which will be my next experiment.  With a 
little more work I hope to build something that is a useful indication of 
sensitivity gain (or otherwise), even if not truly quantitative. 

Thanks!

Philip Perkins  --  philip@astrocruise.com
51 27'N 1 36'W  --  Wiltshire, UK
43 54'N 5 32'E  --  Luberon, France
Astrocruise     --  http://www.astrocruise.com