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Sp@ce_d

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Everything posted by Sp@ce_d

  1. So I went from modified DSLR to Atik 314L+ with (in comparison) a tiny sensor.. and never looked back. In fact I still have 3 of them.. fantastic little things. However, with mono you do need time to get enough data and thats why I automated the Obsy.. I tried multi shooters but again time intensive setting up aligning etc. OSC CCD never seemed to cut it. However, the latest OSC CMOS seems to have changed things, seen some great results & so much so I've dipped a toe in and got a 2600MC. Needless to say I'm still waiting for first light as usual with the weather! However, have you noticed FLO seem to have dropped the price on these by £170 since I got mine 10 days ago. Might be an incentive just there
  2. Hi dagerber and welcome to the forum It's the usual 55mm as it comes in the box, unless using a custom adapter, which for my 150 they are quoting 75mm. So for yours, you are looking at 37.5mm once you take into account the 17.5mm of the camera already.
  3. Well you do seem to have a sense of humour which is a good start. If you still have it after you’ve lost the toe be prepared for the foot, leg and the rest to quickly follow. Along with the dwindling bank account when you wake up one day & realise you have a hungry Obsy to feed!
  4. Nice mount for portable, had mine for years. It gets more use than the NEQ6 which I find a bit heavy to lug about these days. Well worth doing the belt mod. Mines usually used with an Esprit 80 for imaging / C9.25 or Tal for visual. Works a treat well proven.
  5. With my QSI683 (same sensor) I found dithering made more difference than using darks TBH. I use both so not saying don't do darks but I can get away with it (on the QSI) as dithering had a more notable improvement.
  6. Typical!!.. This happened a few weeks ago too when it snowed.. I couldn't get the Obsy roof open.. even after shovelling as much of the frozen snow off as I could it was still froze tight. This time it's deeper & still coming down thick. Just calculated the weight of snow on the roof out of interest.. apparently a 5m x 3m roof (flat, slight angle for run off) with a foot of snow on it is close to 3,400kg !! No wonder the motor laughed at me. Just as well I over engineered the Obsy.
  7. Nice.. This camera is looking very promising! I'm still trying to decide on QHY or ASI, probably won't be till next season as I'll loose astro darkness before one turns up anyway. My Antilia 3nm turned up yesterday, still waiting on SII & OIII. Not looked at it yet, is there an orientation marking? Be interesting to see what they say.
  8. Wow.. amazing stuff. Who would have thought not that long ago OSC (in the right hands of course) would be this good!.. You do realise that you've single handedly, with your constantly amazing posts, persuaded me to order a OSC ASI2600 for galaxy season!!.. shame on you 🤣😉
  9. Nice to see this & loving those colours Peter. You always do get good stars! I've got this down as SH2-132, managed just over 3 "desperate" hours on it in the last month.. think I might quietly put it to one side after seeing this.. 🤣
  10. Good timing, I’ve been mulling these over in light of the extortionate price increases with the astrodons & chromers. Bit the bullet & ordered the 36mm Ha & SII over the weekend. Waiting to hear when the OIII will be in stock. Will be interesting to compare with my 5nm Ha/SII astrodons anyway. The OIII is the one to get right. My astrodon OIII is 3nm. Your results clearly show improvement on a difficult target.. micro lensing aside. Considering the astrodon is well over twice.. two and a half even.. the price, these could be very popular if they can maintain QC & make them quick enough 😏 Thanks for doing this.. very helpful
  11. Steve, I'm soo lucky to have been able to build an Obsy so I can shoot when its dry & clear enough to see stars! My skies used to be Bortle 3/4 when I moved here.. now its 5 with all the building going on, on what used to be farmland!! I'm also not that far really.. as the crow flies.. from Edinburgh.. but on higher ground. So lots of LP, it still throws out a lot of glow. I used to use IDAS p2's on my trains but this one is with the newer D2 in the train, as they recently replaced some of the street lamps here with LED. Having just tried to do a quick LRGB process of some early data on M81/82, the first LRGB I've worked on for quite a while, I can say with the LP & weather we are subject to these days, it makes a difference. Aside from weather, NB is the only thing left for us near any civilisation! I still think Astrodon & Chroma filters are the way to go for NB but prices now are taking the P1sh. Antlia filters look promising but yet to be proven. Aside from all this is clearish sky time.. and I for one can only justify the cost by running an automated Obsy, in the UK. Once I retire & that could be tomorrow if contracts/work is cut short! Then I won't be able to play catchup and will be making do with what I have. So, in hindsight, if I had to choose between an Obsy that was automated to make use of every clear night when I'm asleep and expensive NB filters. I'd pick automated Obsy and wider band NB filters over expensive NB filters. To summarise I think if you have unlimited sky time then 40 hours of Baader 7nm is just as good as 20 hours of 3nm Astrodons.. well in the UK anyway? Depends on your value of life expectancy I guess .. why I chose Astrodons BTW.. lifes too short, can't take it with me.. kids will waste it.. ( sort of joking) 😄
  12. !! My first car was a '69 Austin Cooper.. I completely rebuilt & got rid of that hydrolastic suspension rubbish.. don't listen to @ollypenrice ... understeer is a sheer "thrill" as that wall approaches.. 🤣 Anyway, back on track.. I have.. ohh must be at least 3 sets of Baaders LRGB,Ha, SII,OIII..why do I say "at least" 'cos I can't remember as I've only used one set of filters.. Baader LRGB and Astrodon Ha,SII, OIII for.. err years? When I got my QSI683 I filled it with BaaderLRGB and Astrodon NB's, wow what a difference for NB !! Under UK skies.. these days.. I mostly just bother with NB. aside from LP..( OK I use IDAS always in the chain) shooting through thin /thicker cloud.. well.. cloud also seems to benefit the narrower band NB's. I got a 2" Baader 3.5 Ha when they first came out & was quite impressed but that's been put aside. I setup with ACP running the Obsy with the QSI & Astrodons & I've not really used anything else for years. I just let it go and grab subs when it's dry!!.. UK skies are getting worse.. just shoot away and weed out the rubbish.. there's a lot!!. I was going to get a set of larger Chromers to try, in anticipation of the larger sensor CMOS but after the ridiculous price increases I'm thinking of going OSC CMOS and a 2 or 3 band filter. Right now it'a cheaper to buy a OSC CMOS and filter than a set of 3 NB's!!.. anyway here's a single sub from NGC2174 (Monkey).. (the best of 3 hours of OIII subs so far trying on this target for 2 months!!) from the QSI on an Esprit 150 with FR .77 and Astrodon 3nm OIII so you can compare.. all I've done is a STF (stretch) in Pixinsight. Edit: its a 900s Sub BTW
  13. Thats a very nice first light! I'm still sitting on the fence about a OSC CMOS. Although going by how you've started off, I suspect I'll have succumb by next season. Once I've seen some more of your results no doubt
  14. Oh.. doesn’t that M74 unscrew off the end of the tube to reveal an M86 male thread?
  15. Hmm.. so I've just gone back to some old data from my RC8. These are just the stacks thrown into SHO-AIP & stretched.. then the second one has had SNCR run. So I'd expect you to see a similar balance.
  16. Not been on this target for years, funny enough I've just turned the Esprit 150 on it but only got Ha & OIII so far. Is it SHO? Looks a bit HOO. They're strong in both Ha & SII, colour wise should match the opposite side which they do.. the OIII on the "noses" will lighten them. I tend to play with the latest version of SHO-AIP now, to get an idea. Looks like you're using PI by your attachment. Are you seeing a strong green with the Ha?
  17. Has anyone actually heard what the justification is for doubling the prices? The Antlia filters now seem to be available in 3nm so will be interesting to see how they perform. As said before, a 4/3rds cmos osc & exreeme/idas filters now come in at half the cost of a set of these.
  18. Hi Chris I’m just revisiting this thread after I had an initial look when you first posted. Interesting the music has come up as it’s what stopped me watching the whole thing. I see you’ve done a poll & fair enough on those results but maybe I can throw some observations in the mix that may help? As a viewer I want to concentrate on what you are showing me but more importantly what you are telling me as it is informational. I want to learn something so concentration is key. Now, why did I feel anxious, distracted & unable to continue? Its not so much the volume balance as it is the focus point. To me there’s a fight going on for the attention of my ears between the voice & the lead lines in the music. As a musician I’m plagued by this so probably hypersensitive but it will affect others subconsciously. When I hear music my brains breaking it down into the components automatically! So the choice of “background” music regardless of genre.. we all have different tastes anyway.. shouldn’t compete for attention with your voice. As much as we love listening to music in this case we don’t really want it getting our attention, it almost has to be boring & uneventfully flowing. No Lead lines, dramatic changes to distract & compete but pleasantly carrying your voice. I’m no expert in mixing voiceovers, I did attention seeking listen to me stuff so take this with a pinch of salt mate 😀 Plus my ears are well worn from the long gone days of playing with no ear protectors. Anyway, feel free to ask.. or ignore my ramblings mate.. here if I can help
  19. OMG!.. I was almost at the point of accepting that 2300 was an investment but it is now a whopping 4300 🤬 ... 🥴 and the Astrodons have also gone up too by the looks of it
  20. With the Flattener the image circle is 44mm With the new 0.77x Red/Flat it's 36mm So the 36mm will vignette but I don't have a full frame camera so can't say what the 44mm will be like. You do need a sensitive guide camera. With guiding flex is an issue you want to avoid at longer FL & TBH I never had an issue with either the QSI inbuilt or the SX filter wheel/OAG combo with a lodestar. I use multistar guiding now which has improved even more (ACP/Maxim). The RC8 did complain a couple of times on M51 a few years back if it wasn't a good sky but can't remember having issues anywhere else.. not yet anyway & I've been using OAG's for years now. However obviously the longer FL you go the more you'll have to plan for the guide star.
  21. +1 for the Esprits. I have three, 2x80's and recently my wife treated me to a 150 ( special birthday pressie for moving up a decade!) which I am loving. I've had WO's in the past but from my experience (I didn't like the star shapes/cell clips or focusers) the Esprits out do them. The Esprit 150 with the new Reducer/Flattener 0.77x is a nice match with my QSI683. Not sure how much vignetting there'll be on a full frame though as it won't fully illuminate. I tried doing DSO with my C925 but wasted a year really.. mirror flop & constant collation probs. It's brilliant for observing but unless you can lock the mirrors (HD version) I wouldn't waste the time for imaging. I replaced it with a carbon RC8 which stayed on the mount for 5 years!.. However I prefer the Esprit150 hands down. My setup comes in at about 4feet in length from dew shield extended to back of camera, so you'll need at least enough room to swing that around. Edit: I'd suggest you go OAG rather than separate guidescope.
  22. All the above. One I don’t see listed... My first delve was inspired by Harry’s tutorials here http://www.harrysastroshed.com/
  23. Almost posting this one out of frustration with the weather but I guess I've been lucky to get enough to make the effort, so here's what I have so far. Captures between 22 & 30 November through pretty dismal skies. 9x900 Ha Astrodon 5nm 6x900 OIII Astrodon 3nm 6x900 SII Astrodon 5nm Esprit 150 with the new Flattener/Reducer 0.77x & QSI683 Processed in Pixinsight with a final pass through Topaz DeNoise AI. Still finding it a bit heavy handed & feeding my overcooking tendencies. Feel free to poke, prod and mumble about it. Be warned, it's not too pretty in deep. I'd love more data but it's been dire. I have 15mins each of RGB for stars but not happy with results so far so desat ones will have to do for now.
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