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And this all arrived today, also from @FLO Rowan AZ100 mount, 2x Dual Saddles, Tilt/Pan Handle, DSC tray and Counterweight Bar and direct from Rowan... an EQ5 tripod adaptor Not setup yet, but this mount head feels so well engineered and smooth in operation

I bought myself a Takahashi FC-76 DCU from FLO on Thursday night. I’d been obsessing about a Tak for a while, especially since reading the recommendations by @DirkSteele and@JeremyS. It arrived today, and I can’t even articulate how excited I was when I saw the box, opened the ‘box origami’ and finally beheld the magic within. The Certificate of Inspection with the autographs of Mr Takahashi and colleagues was the icing on the cake! I’m planning on using this as an ultra portable setup for travel, and putting it on my Giro Ercole mini with a (yet to be purchased) lightweight tripod. Q

The Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula (Barnard 33 and NGC2024) - 7 hours of Ha data gathered on 12th Feb. and 40 mins each of RGB binned 2x2 under terrible conditions - (full moon and wispy high cloud) on 1st March. Nearly didn't bother processing it but the quality of the HA data hides the poor quality of the RGB.

It's my 30th birthday today and as such my fiance had this astronomy themed cake made for me!

The missing gap in my Pentax XW set is finally filled... XW5 arrived today... quickly as always from @FLO

Thanks David! That star (Gamma Cas) was a real challenge wasn't it?! I'll try and show below how i went about adding in the 'lesser-stretched Ha stars' because this stage alone made a huge difference. From then on, it was just a case of making smaller adjustments. Unfortunately this will all be done in PS (i know you use P.I) but pretty much anything that can be done in one program can be done in another (once you work out how) so hopefully it will still be of some use to you. I'll try and keep the waffling to a minimum, so here goes: 1. Save 2 versions of the Ha stack using your fav

6.45pm Monday – clear, still, cold. Using 8SE for a change – aiming for a subarcsecond double, and manual tracking is difficult at high magnification. Aligned on Aldebaran. Started in each case with x48/1.34deg. OΣ95 (STT95) – 7th mag, 0.9” separation. GoTo spot on. Only a faint pair above. x203, x303 – less sharp – needed a tad more mag – x339 – Bingo! – well matched pair, very close, sec at 4 o’clock – focus critical – great result, for separation of 0.9”. The following two are less than 0.5deg apart: Σ674 (STF674) also CD Tau – 6th & 9th mag, 9.9”, (2)+1, status

Did I mention that I have been under lots of cloud for the past week or more? Did I mention that it looks like cloudy weather will continue for another week - or more? What to do! Pulled out some data from last year and started working on it again - with some new processing ideas. Just a test - that I think worked out OK. (I do hope you can view this on a larger screen). This was 16 hours total Ha, SII & OIII data with FSQ 130ED and FLI ML16200 camera.....January 2020. (For Info: This is not exactly an SHO image; I generally mix them in some proportion other than 1:1:1 to RGB. I also

This data set has been sitting on my hard drive since last summer, waiting for the right moment... well that moment finally arrived. Here is my image of The Iris Nebula (NGC 7023): While gathering the data I noticed that loads of subs were photo-bombed by space hardware. I thought it would be interesting to do a stack that didn't remove any of the trails and here is the result. Yikes! I haven't counted how many there are, but it seems to be hundreds... The image comprises 3 hours in each of R, G & B, along with 13 hours of Luminance. A total integration time of

A nice Atlas recommended by Mark at Beaufort Mark

Celestron 114, Newt EQ2 mount single RA economy drive. QHY462C Camera Another more careful process 13 pane

Berlebach Planet second hand bargain.

The Seven Sisters (M45) in Taurus and only 400 lights years distance from Earth. I think this is the most glamorous open clusters in our night sky and even sparkles through a full moon. So happy that the weather allows me outside again. Great for stars!! SW200P Canon650D ISO800 72x30secs subs

Just arrived today with guaranteed clear skies. Baader ND1.8 for my hershal wedge instead of the ND3 that was installed. Will only be for imaging and give higher frame rate captures. Thanks FLO.

Rosette and Cone Nebula wide field. I came across a great image of this area today and thought now that's a nice field, so rushed out when I got home and managed to capture a quick 90 mins of data tonight before Orion went behind our trees. 9 x 10 mins with my Samyang 135mm f2 lens @ f2.8 & Atik 383L CCD camera + Baader 7nm ha filter. Guided, captured, stacked and stretched in MaximDL, processed in Photoshop. Work in progress along with a few other projects ive got going around Orion at the moment, but quickly running out of time for this season so may have to wait until the next winter to

Just a diagonal for me. Well, a Baader Zeiss prism (BBHS) T-2 diagonal body which I'll be using in all my refractors from now on. It arrived with mist as well as clouds! Ant

Hi, just got to image even with the moon out. M82 the Cigar Galaxy imaged the evenings of the 25th & 26th FEB. Just over 11hrs image time, [nearly daylight to my thinking]. Filters used Optlong L-eXtreem and Baader Neodymium & IR-Cut Moon & Skyglow. 141 x 180s..51 x 300s Scope OOUK ODK12. f6-8

Just a very quick single sub I took tonight with my Canon 450d and younogo 50mm prime lens 1600iso 30 secs 3.5f, only took this one as I was setting up my dslr to image Orion and I caught this out the corner of my eye whilst framing Orion. Not the best ever but I'm happy with it for a quick point and shoot. Unprocessed. EDIT...I've added a cropped version of this image and makes it look much better, will get the framing right next time, was going to try tonight but the cloud has decided to stay unfortunately. Clear skies

Dont know how often this happens ( new to astronomy) that Mars and M45 can be captured in the same field of view ...... so thought I would give it a go. . CC always welcome.

Hi everyone, It looks like most of the UK got some clear skies this weekend, even though it was around a full moon I was still glad to get out and at least have a go! - I hope you all got the chance to get out too It gave me the opportunity to try and make a video also which I've been enjoying doing recently I imaged for two full nights, dusk til' dawn, and in the end captured 104x2m subs on M42, and 300x2m subs on M51. - very tiring! I'd made a mistake on night 1 and accidentally recorded that night's data all at 300 gain! - I noticed on night 2 and put it

As a retailer (nothing to do with astro) we are facing two issues - UK (non) supply chain - take International Paints for example - spring time - people ready to get their boats sorted out for the season - International have virtually nothing on their shelves - many of the workforce were furloughed and therefore not making paints - how can they or we trade our way out of this mess if nobody has any stock of anything??? Secondly - stuff that comes from outside the UK - aside from China a lot of boaty stuff comes from Sweden, Germany, Italy and Greece - the few that will still ship to the UK hav

hi just a single image of 15mins on ha

One from back in January when I was shooting the Rosette. Caught the ISS shooting for the Moon too!

The analemma is the figure of eight track of the sun at a specific point in time each day over the course of the year. It can be captured photographically but requires, time, patience, attention to detail and committment. Are you up for it? Well executed analemma pictures are few and far between. Here is an excellent article which explains how to achieve a successful result https://www.instructables.com/Capture-the-Analemma-of-the-Sun/ Having captured the analemma you can travel to a stunning location for your foreground. This isn't cheating, in fact it is essential since any

Hello. With the release of the new version of Siril (0.99.8.1) we have updated our website at www.siril.org. Also, we have updated a lot of tutorials especially one that should really help beginners!! You can have a look here: https://siril.org/tutorials/tuto-scripts/ Please, do not hesitate to share it, and to write feedback.

Few nice clear nights lately

Busy night then fireballx15, enjoy Hi there, Long-time lurked, but first time poster on SGL. So here is my application letter for the Az100 owners club. Like many others, I am declaring myself as another happy AZ100 owner. Here are my impressions after 38 hours of use. The whole experience has been a pleasure, from initial contact with Derek, placing the order, through to the DHL notifications, unpacking and first light. I ordered the Uni 28 mount directly from Berlebach and they had a super-fast delivery also. Everything has been a pleasure with this mount, as everyone els

Well I'm making a personal stand. No more astro-purchases for a year then see where everything still resides. We are all going to have to repay the enormous costs arising from the virus so saving some hard earnt notes in the bank will come in handy. Difficult times. Cheers, Steve

I couldn’t believe it when I saw the certificate- imagine the President and such senior people all signing it. It’s almost as much of a treasure as the scope. I can’t wait to look through it now, the Kerry Dark Sky Reserve and eventually Botswana are what I have in mind - we can always hope!

Filter for me too today, Baader photometric R from FLO. Intended for HOYS project photometry and ExoClock expoplanet transit detection contributions

There are nae pockets in a shroud

But the Tak is for life, so not really expensive after all. Just saying, but don't let me influence you.

Just starting out with the photography equipment I have already. I think I may have found myself a new hobby. This was taken a few nights ago. Camera Canon 5d mk IV, Sigma 70-200mm f2,8. 1,384 subs at 1s, 50 flats, 30 darks. Used Deep Sky Stacker and photoshop. Just enjoyed the process from start to finish. I have a Celestron Nexstar 127 slt, so planning to try mounting the DSLR and taking some short subs to see what I can tease out of that. I may even try to design a mount to convert to an EQ mount. Just waiting for the skies to clear

For what? For the liquorice allsorts? We have a good alternative already. no but you’re right. I dont understand why things are so hard right now. Like a form of punishment for leaving the eu?

That DL in the shadows is almost an erotic tease. Perhaps im revealing too much about myself and my love of Takahashi!

These sketches of field stars in the field of view are actually quite useful to get an idea of where to look for the pup. I noticed during my last attempts that I wasn't really sure where to look relative to the drifting Sirius A in the field. I guess that knowing exactly where to look greatly improves the chances of detecting B. So: thanks all!

There are two faint stars near Sirius that I've found quite important to being able to have a chance to see the Pup star itself. I have circled them in my sketch below (refractor view). One is the one that @Nik271 refers to in his post above. If you can see these two, you have a shout at seeing the Pup star, when the glare of Sirius A is at a minimum. Over the years I have tried filters, using the field stop edge and occulting bars but eventually it was just looking carefully under the better seeing conditions using a magnification that gave a decent image scale (250x or thereabouts seems

I spend a pleasant evening on Saturday on a skype call, sharing the moon through my C8 / asi178mm and ended up taking a mosaic, because 'why not?'. 49 panels later, and we have this monster! Click through for the full view

Finally had a clear few hours this evening after a very clear day. This gave me a chance to see what difference I'd made to my scope & mount. The SW Evostar 100ED Pro had the focuser tuned (taken apart, cleaned, the flat on the focuser tube ground flat, assembled and adjusted). The SW EQ5 mount had the same treatment over the weekend with a full strip, clean, new bearings, re-grease and assembled again. The focuser performed very well, it use to change focus as I tightened the locking screw because of slack. Tonight is took five adjustment to get focus! The jury is still ou

I have too many hobbies and suffer too badly from depression to do many things regularly and given the focus for me over the last few months is to get fit and lose a load of weight many other hobbies have taken a back seat. However, given what a glorious afternoon it was yesterday here in Sheffield I thought I would chance setting the scope up for some lunar obs and tackle a few other jobs I've had on the to do list as well. First up was updating Astroberry and checking I could remember how to use it all. That went without a hitch and after a bit of faffing with IP addresses etc I had m

Lovely images but I personally don't see what the extreme has added even in those conditions, for its cost I feel it hasn't appeared to do anymore than what the L enhance can do. Below-600D and L-enhance

Hi, I'm still plugging away at Mars . This will probably be the last one (but I keep saying this!). I used my Meade 2080, Zwo asi224mc, Baader UV-IR cut filter and a 2x Barlow. 5000 frames, best 15% used. The main features are (from left) the dark Mare Cimmerium, the brighter cut of Hesperia Planum and Syrtis Minor. Clear skies Peter

Hi again everyone! I took the opportunity to get out on the last night of February as the skies promised to be clear (a promise not quite kept!) My target of choice was the Cone and Foxfur nebulae in Monoceros - I wanted to shoot something that allowed me to use my L-Extreme filter in an effort to beat the strong moonlight somewhat which that filter seems to do excellently Image capture went quite smoothly, the only things that went wrong were things out of my control - the weather! - as the night progressed the air thickened to the point where it almost felt wet

Not just yours.....

Couple on new toys to have a play with.

Don't fret, Ant...it's a "no brainer".. Dave

I know what my lifetime scope would be... because I recently bought it... DL in the dark.

Ah, reminds me of the epic tale of the great duck flotilla of 1992 ! https://www.iflscience.com/environment/28000-rubber-ducks-accidentally-embarked-on-an-epic-ocean-current-study-in-1992/

Hi all, I wondered if you could help me with a very easy identification - see my right-side up drawing (same as binoculars) below. I'm pretty sure this is the Hyades in Taurus as it's right next to Alderaan. Looks like a bull's head to me too. But it looks nothing like the star charts or proper photos of Hyades. It's massively distinctive from my location, can spot it easily with binoculars, so it'd be good to properly identify it. Looks nothing like this... obviously this is a decent astrophotography image so there are a lot more stars, but i thought i'd be a

what did the postman bring? does this include DPD, Got my nice QHY polemaster from First light optics .Arrived Tuesday, wanted to try it before posting this, and yes it is as good as the reviews suggest, thanks to FLO for quick dispatch and easy ordering, Much happy person in Essex,