All Activity

Her English was very good. She could speak on any topic, even science stuff. Sometimes her pronunciation was way off. For a while I was trying to understand when she said someone was 'trying to devil up' - I figured it out, it was actually develop! Originally she was from a small village in Transylvania. I know it's shameful, but in ten years I never learned any Romanian

You may get away with it just about due to the relatively low image scale. Adam

This GoTo handset was in a box of bits that I bought. Does anyone know what mount it is used with please? The only connection is the USB plug on the end of the curly cable. There are no sockets on the handset, nor is there any text on the rear.

i have this scope @magnahrl and i really rate it. It has brought and does bring me a lot of pleasure. That said in your family of scopes i'm not sure it brings any new capability versus the 6" Mak, 8" SCT and 8" newt you have??? In my family of scopes i would swap you my CC8 for your 6" Intes 🙂 The CC8 is a bit undersized (using the flashlight test) at 185mm ish and that makes the secondary a bit chunky in percentage terms and also using the flashlight test the secondary is anyway a bit bigger than specified. Still, I really enjoy it's contrast and general capability (in a compact package) at medium magnifications on DSO (including planetary nebula) and collimation holds really well (i drive down a rough track to my viewing spot and it doesn't care). For planets the diffraction spikes are a big distraction (for me) and i think the quite thick secondary support (that makes collimation so robust) contribute to those spikes being fairly prominent on the brighter planets even while the details on the face of Jupiter in particular have at times been excellent.

Image looks great, just needs lots more total exposure time to reduce the noise. My experience using clone and heal tools is that it's best to do so after stretching your image. If you do it on linear data, initially it may look better but when you later stretch the image, the clone/heal "repairs" stand out like a sore thumb. I have not found a way to do a temporary screen stretch in GIMP to assist in working on linear data, and would also be interested in hearing of any way of doing the this.

Sorry, I don’t have access to a HEQ5 any more else I would have tried this combination out for you. What I would say is you would be imaging at 2.39” per pixel so you have some leeway to play with. The RASA8 and dew shield combination is a bit of a sail in windy conditions but I see you have a nice roll off roof observatory which would offer some protection. I can understand why you would like some first hand experience, it would be frustrating in the extreme to buy a RASA and then not be able to use it because the mount wasn’t up to it. It might be worth asking FLO if they could advise?

The software I use is Raspberry Pi specific: https://github.com/AllskyTeam/allsky It's quite comprehensive, very configurable - to the point of taking your life over! And does have a meteor detection module/plugin that's still experimental. I haven't used it. As you'll see from the full night timelapse below, the camera is sited under a busy flight path of Transatlantic and domestic flights. There are multiple satellite flares there too. So I suspect it might be hard work training software to pick out meteors from all the noise. I could be wrong The PoE is stable, but as noted above, getting the right gear is important. The current Pi 4 reports the odd "under volt" when it's busy, such as when it's crunching the images to make the timelapse. I've already upgraded the PoE switch that supplies the power and I'm going to replace the splitter for a higher rated one. I had some teething problems initially, long period connection drop-outs but not loss of power. It turned out that the Pi was connecting via WiFi, which is a bit flakey in that spot - outside an aluminium caravan! The Pi was set to prioritise WiFi over Ethernet. Now corrected that but still have the WiFi connected as back up. The Pi has crashed to unstable states a couple of times, VNC not connecting so unable to go in and fix it, but did have SSH. A bit complex really. I have a mini PC on site also. That lives inside. I can VNC into that then SSH to the Pi to reboot it. That's mostly just a hazard of remote computers, not particularly PoE, and it's rare. PoE has been better than I'd expected. It's not a very long run and only Cat5 cable, maybe 20mts. I do have all the bits to run power and ethernet separately or even just have the camera on its own via a long USB 3 cable. None of that was needed. Anyway, last night was very clear oop north. April 25-26.mp4

Version 3.0.1 is available... I'll test it later to see if the bug/incompatibility was fixed...

Hello and welcome.

Taken before the clouds took over

Dirk, you might try contacting the Webb Society. They had a couple of copies of volume 1 at the recent astronomy show on their sales table. They will post items too. At the same show I bought a copy of volume 4 (The Glories of the Milky Way).which is out of print but they had been sent an odd copy from the publishers. If this fails it might be worth putting a wanted ad in the classifieds.

Fascinating reading thank you. It's something I've thought about several times but not quite got round to ( the usual story 😁 ) A couple of questions if I may: 1. Do you use any software to detect meteor trails or do you have to manually look through every image? 2. How reliable is the POE at higher currents? Is it better than using say wi-fi and a small local power supply ( apologies if there are design decisions for this in earlier posts that I've missed )

Good service again. Added some books and another Oklop bag for my smaller APM LZOS refractors . Ordered late evening on Tuesday, dispatched, Wednesday and arrived Thursday. Incredibly well paid as well.

A warm welcome to SGL

Truth be told we call it "rândunică" but maaan , I really have no ideea how to explain "â" and "ă" sounds. So many english speakers use "rindunica" which is what also many children do . Still prety close to Latinm probably because those pesky Romans did ocupy a large part of Dacia and Latin was lingua franca long before the franks 😄 Simplest example : Latin - 'salutare' / Romanian - 'salut' / English - 'hello' ( or 'greetings' )

Adding a few more books to my library after the delivery last week. This haul courtesy of FLO. One issue is I do not own The Night Sky Guide Volume 1 and it it seems to be out of stock everywhere. The completion-ist part of my personality will scratch away at me if I cannot locate a copy. While I greatly admire those who make their own scopes, I lack those skills but I am curious to learn a bit more, hence two more of the books. Also bought another Oklop bag. This time for two smaller APM LZOS scopes. It’s my third one and I quite like them.

@almcl your findings and concerns are as mine. Judging from image 2, I would say that collimation is good, and the concentre/cheshire method of collimation may be just as accurate as tri-Bahtinov collimation. It has the added advantage (for the former) that it can be done at any time, so won't interfere with observing or imaging time. The advantage of the tri-Bahtinov is that it is easy to do with imaging gear in place. This makes it an easier method to check collimation during imaging or during a season. No need to remove the camera, so no need to retake flats.

That was Elementary school.

Hi I am new to this site. I have been into Astronomy since I was in Grad school. I have taken images with film for years. Now I am finally working with digital. Any help you folks can give me would be appreciated.

You might want to pick up a 45 or 90 degree correct image diagonal for terrestrial viewing to avoid image reversal. They're really cheap on the secondary market because they are packaged with so many department store scopes, so they're resale prices are very suppressed. I've got a few collecting dust that were tossed in with scopes I've bought over the years.

I had several disappointing sessions in a row a couple years ago and went on hiatus. I'm back at it, enjoying myself, and doing just visual and some quick cell phone images. My advice is take a break and come back fresh in 6 months.

PS Or should I save money and get a Mewlon 180? Somewhere in the future. Magnus A.

Intressting thread. I am very intressted to purchase a GSO CC8 f12. Partly because it`s an open tube which maybe reduces cooldowntime and the problem with dew. I also like the eypiece is always easy to reach comparing to my 8" f/6 Newtonian. I can get one CC8 second hand which has only been set up 3 times but hardly used since the seller purchased it in 2021. The price is also attractive -1/2 the money vs the cost new. Furthermore the seller has let me loan it before actually buying it. Very kind. I have had it out for 2 nights. They where a bit hazy but I could see brighter stars. It was a bit out of collimation. I have never collimated a CC but it looks as I got right by using a 4mm hexwrench (?) on the secondary. Only tiny movements. I did not touch the primary. I noted some SA in startest but not more than one can expect on a massproduced telescope. No astigmatism, TDE or pinched optics. The seeing was rather mediocre so I was not able to determing the snap focus exactly. I used one 2" extension ring + a 2"diagonal (WO). Mag I used were 100X, 185X, 267X, 300X ,343X and 400X for testing. Delta Cyg was sweet and well sep at 185X and 267X. Lot`s of black space between A-B. The OTA is rather heavy vs my C8, close to 9-10kg is my guess (20lbs) Still my VixenGP+Celestron 2" steeltripodlegs held very solid for visual observing. And yes I am 100% visual. Damping time was ~3 sec after a light hit on the tube at 400X. On my C8 it`s ~1sec. What do I want to use this scope for? Well mainly multiple stars, planets,open clusters, globular clusters and planetary nebulas. I would be happy to here opinions regarding my thinking on this 8"CC scope from you out there..... Yes I know I have too many scopes. But I am very curious on this CC and the price is good? I would not have considered I new one for full price! Maybe....... Clear Skies! Magnus A.

In a land far, far away, Cumbria to be exact, there is a pristine clear sky. I'm not there to witness it, but the Paulsky Camera is! While flicking through the images, I spotted a nice meteor. So here is that frame. It'll be lost as a sub-second flash in the overnight time-lapse. Cloud and moonlight have been blighting the Allsky Camera recently but it's improving again, maybe a window of opportunity before the all-night-twilight sets in. The Great Glowing Cheesball is just starting to affect the camera now. So, it's downhill for the rest of the night... In other news, emboldened by @Skipper Billy's Allsky camera linked to above, I've ordered a lens that will fit the whole image circle on the ASI 178 sensor. So a full 180deg view. That and I've ordered a much bigger dome. Again, Skipper Billy suggested that on his website as it allows ventilation holes to be drilled around the camera, allowing the very warm air from the RasPi to circulate in the dome, hopefully keeping it condensation free. There is a newly released firmware (EEPROM) for the Raspi, which allows even greater overclocking. I can't dream of taking the enclosed Pi to the max but I still had the original firmware on my Pi 4B which limited the CPU to 1.5 MHz, I've now set it to 2.0 Mhz. It might, and probably will cook in the summer. So I'll likely stop recording daytime images and just let it idle in the heat of the day. I'm looking to swap the Pi4 for my Pi5 to limit some of the issues with image handling. I tried at the weekend but it balked at boot-up, complaining of voltage drop. Thinking about it, the PoE splitter is only rated at 2A, so I've got a higher rated one on order. The PoE injector is a big 8 channel PoE switch rated at 85w total load. It is also running 2 x PoE surveillance cameras, but I'm confident that total load will be compliant. That'll be an ongoing project into the summer, due to my limited opportunities to get up there once the parts arrive.

So, my imaging rig to date has been using refractors, Evostar 100ED DS Pro, Evostar 80ED DSO Pro & WO Zenith 73 III, which has been alright but the number of clear nights seems to be getting fewer and the West Coast of Scotland isn't renowned for it's temperate rain forests because it's very dry! So that I can try to get the most out of the clear nights we do get, I would like to upgrade to a faster scope and I'm thinking about the RASA 8, which should suit my ASI294MC Pro but I'm not too sure about the weight on the HEQ5. My HEQ5 is about 3 years old, has the Rowan belt conversion fitted and is mounted on a solid concrete pier (see my Obsy build thread for details). With the RASA 8, ASI294MC Pro, dew shield & guide scope & camera (I would rather have guiding than not) then it's getting very close to the maximum imaging payload for the HEQ5. I know it could really do with the EQ6-R or similar, but I can't justify changing the mount & scope, and there's no point just changing the mount and sticking with the scopes I already have. So, has anyone got or used a RASA 8 on the HEQ5 and how did it handle? Any issues balancing the rig and did you use a guide scope or not? Thanks for any advise.