steppenwolf

Can anyone else see 'Jack Frost's face' in this image? It was cold enough for him to be out ........

NGC 896 (The Fish Head Nebula) Description NGC 896, commonly known as the Fish Head Nebula, is a projection of nebulosity off to the north-west of the famous Heart Nebula (IC 1805). The Nebula is located in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way in the constellation Cassiopeia at a distance of 7,500 light years from Earth. With glowing Ha emissions and dark dust lanes, it is an attractive object for imagers using a wide range of filters and this image is a complex combination of Ha, OIII and LRGB data. The Ha and OIII data were collected over two nights in October and the LRGB in a single surprise session last night (29/11/19) when after weeks of rain, we had a really clear night! The nebula emits strongly in Ha but rather weakly in OIII which is why it appears mainly red in many images, including this one but it is overall one of the brightest regions of the Heart Nebula and was the first part of this nebula to be discovered. The nebula’s fascinating sculpted shape is driven by energy from some of the bright stars in the open cluster Melotte 15 which contains many stars 50x brighter than our own Sun and it plays host to several stellar nurseries. Image Stats Mount: Mesu 200 Telescope: Sky-Watcher Esprit 150 Flattener: Sky-Watcher Esprit specific Camera: QSI 683 WSG-8 Filters: Astrodon 3nm Ha, 3nm OIII, Astronomik L, R, G and B Subframes: 12 x 1800 sec Ha, 12 x 1800 sec OIII, 16x 600 sec Luminance, 11 x 600 sec Red, 6 x 600 sec Green, 6 x 600 sec Blue Total Integration: 18.5 hours Control: CCD Commander Capture: MaxIm DL Calibration, Stacking and Deconvolution: PixInsight Post-Processing: PhotoShop PS3 Location Constellation Cassiopeia RA 02° 28' 01.0" DEC +62° 11' 15.0" Distance 7500ly

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He'll love you forever! A telescope known as a Dobsonian (after the designer of the mount) will give your husband the best telescope and aperture for your money. If your budget is absolutely fixed at around the £200.00 mark then the Sky-Watcher Skyliner 150P would be a good choice If you could raise the budget to £289.00 then the Sky-Watcher Skyliner 200P would be the perfect instrument to get some real observing done. Good luck with your decision!

Stick a dew heater on it!! 🤣

This is very true - I couldn't wait to find a way of attaching my Commodore PET to my transceiver when I did amateur radio, I did the same with my kit car (of course you need to change the fuelling and ignition while the car is moving) and the same was true of my original EOS 300D imaging camera and even more recently my whole observatory. Even my analogue synthesizer has found some advantages to connection to a computer - will it never end?

You make a very valid point! I ran my observatory in manual mode for 10 years and had great fun capturing images and then processing them but then I retired and wanted a 'project'!! That project was to make the observatory completely remotely controlled and I have been very successful in that aim BUT, reliance on software does have its issues but this is true as soon as you get into imaging per se and is not associated with just remote operation because as soon as you start autoguiding - and you WILL start autoguiding (!) - out comes the PC! Don't tell anyone but I lost numerous nights with an autofocus issue earlier this year that turned out to be a tick in a box that should have been left unticked and to this day I have no idea how or why the box became ticked in the first place ..... PCs and software for deep sky imaging are a necessary evil and once you have made that choice to join the dark side you may as well embrace the whole kit and caboodle ..... My pleasure, it is something I started doing when I thought I might sell a few tens of the book and I just can't let go of the personal touch!

I don't think that is the problem as you need to be able to run it to then select CCDSoft! I don't have CCDSoft by the way. Does literally nothing happen when you run th software?

CCD Commander, great though it is, is only an 'orchestrator' for controlling other external software. CCDSoft and MaxIm DL are the two image capture programs that are supported. In addition, there are several other external programs that complete the system. If you don't want to use MaxIm DL as I do, I would suggest that SG Pro would be a good alternative as suggested by @skybadger. I DIDN'T want to use SG Pro because I am an existing MaxIm DL user so CCD Commander was music to my ears! SG Pro does not rely on external software for capturing the images although it does require other external software for some functions like autoguiding.

Spending 45 minutes setting up for an imaging session and not realising that all too often the sky was clouding over and there wasn't going to be any imaging! 🙁 My observatory brought the hobby alive again. 😀

Pah! Stellarium is far too pretty - gimmee rough ol' C du C any day 🤣

I have the latest Pulsar drive system in my own Pulsar Observatory but I don't use SG Pro = however, I do use MaxIm DL and Carted du Ciel. I much prefer to make all my connections via POTH as I find this works extremely reliably. Historically, and documented in several threads on SGL, when something goes wrong with dome control, changing to POTH from native has pretty much always resolved the issues and I often wonder why once the original software bug is fixed, people revert back to the native drivers again!!!! I use CCD Commander which has some basic similarities to ACP although the latter is much more comprehensive and the reason I have chosen this route is that I am a great fan of MaxIm DL. A few questions regarding this profile: Am I correct in assuming that the dome geometry and slaving options should only be set in POTH for this profile? I assume that POTH overrides any geometry or slaving options selected in SG Pro? YES Should the telescope mount and focuser be controllable via SG Pro when using POTH? For some unknown reason, the mount wouldn't park when I selected the option in SG Pro? Can't think of any reason why not but then I am not an SG Pro user! Should POTH be selected in Cartes du Ciel when using this profile? I read that this can cause a loop and that EQMOD ASCOM EQ5/6 should be used as the driver? YES POTH should be selected in Cartes du Ciel - it is simply an ASCOM Hub. The 'loop' you mention comes from incorrectly trying to select POTH twice when setting up! Is there any way to have the dome permanently slaved in POTH without selecting the checkbox every time? I assume the slaving options in SG Pro i.e. slave on sequence start don't work, when using POTH? Can't help with this one as CCD Commander sets the slaving for me

How many frames had the fault? Can you attach the faulty frames here for analysis?

This is a really cool idea, guys especially for those members that want to keep their image processing skills alive when capturing image data in the UK is halted by spells of poor weather! The equipment choices look well thought out too.

This looks like either a snagging cable, some machining debris in the drive gear or a loose component. Snagging cable would be quite likely.

Here is my down and dirty attempt on your screen dump. 1. I blended the Ha into the red at 40% and then replaced the red channel in your RGB Image. 2. I then blended the Ha again into a copy of the new 'Red' channel at 60% to form a new composite Luminance channel 3. I removed some of the background gradient in the RGB image 4. I added the Luminance channel to form an LRGB image. I used PhotoShop for this process combining method but a similar result could be produced using PI and PixelMath

Get submitting, Mick and I wish you luck!

I have had a discussion with the Sky at Night magazine editor and the situation is (as you would probably guess!) not as straightforward as might be expected. It turns out that fewer publishable images are received each month than I had imagined and there will be several images of the same object within that shortlist which places further restrictions on the selection process. A further consideration is avoiding including, where possible, the same contributor two issues in a row. In addition to that the magazine considers itself to be an international publication and the selections can only be made from the submissions received whether from the UK or further afield and some months they get more contributions from the UK than other months. Check out January’s issue for confirmation of this! The Editor doesn’t feel that a separate ‘UK’ and ‘Rest of World’ page would be workable due to the variability of image submissions from month to month.

Having top end equipment is absolutely no easy route to great images so I think we need to be a little careful on this point - my first ‘image of the month’ published in Astronomy Now magazine in 2007 was captured using a Canon 300D and a 200mm telephoto lens!

I think the OP makes a valid point and bearing in mind that the magazines we are talking about are a UK based, it does seem a little strange that amateur images from around the World abound in the reader galleries. The issues that I see here are:- 1. I think that all the images posted should be good quality - that is the point of publishing them, surely? 2. Ruling people out because they own high end equipment would not be a fair system as we all have choices in how we spend our money 3. How can the magazines possibly decide who is an 'evolving beginner' and who is a 'old hand' 4. Having two tiers for the gallery leaves it open to potential abuse This surely the best solution? I am going to bring this thread to the attention of the magazine that I write for but I can't promise anything as their workload is already heavy enough without complicating things further!

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain With the world turning circles running 'round my brain Luckily, it didn't rain yesterday here in West Sussex so I got to see this fascinating event - well captured, Reggie. I too hope the song reference was deliberate or @Littleguy80 and I have some explaining to do!

There is always that risk with any push fit system but the fit on mine is close to interference anyway so I don't think this is an issue. However, I always tighten the screw closest to the top first as this takes the load off my restraining hand a little while I tighten the others!

@A40farinagolf has posted the list as I know it. Tilt can be introduced in two areas with this flattener - at the camera end jut tighten the locking screw very securely and at the nosepiece end. The 2" nosepiece fits into a standard 2" eyepiece holder and good ones (like William Optics own) have two retaining thumb screws and one grub screw (hidden under a silicone 'plug' 120 degrees from the two screws) - expose the 'hidden' grub screw, slacken off all three screws and insert the flattener with the camera attached. Rock it slightly until you can feel that the two mating faces are touching one another completely flatly then tighten up the two thumb screws very firmly. While still supporting the camera and flattener, tighten up the grub screw. This results in a really good mating of the two surfaces and mitigates any tilt at this point. If your eyepiece holder doesn't have a third thumb screw or hidden grub screw, drill and tap a suitable hole at 120 degrees from the other two screws and insert a third bolt. If your eyepiece holder only has one thumb screw then drill and tap holes for two more - you need three to make this 'pushfit' connection fit for purpose.

No it doesn't!! Its biggest failing 😱

I don't think the body does revolve, I am sure that it is only the internals that move but I am loathe to undo mine to confirm as I have perfect spacing at the moment and have had since I first set it over 3 years ago! If you do manage to find one on the second hand market, I have some tips for you (just shout!) on how to ensure that you minimise tilt. Yes you do if your particular refractor is not on the list. Good question and unfortunately, I have never noticed so can't confirm 🙁