Big Ian 65

Hi Guys, All my astronomy gear is disassembled and packed away ready for our move back up North… so it looks like there will be a break in my astronomy endeavours for a while, until we get settled and see how the skies are in North Lancashire! I hope to get setup in a reasonable time frame a post some new pics then! Thanks for all your support and advice over the last year or so! Cheers, Ian

You're too picky - I love this image - I assume this is your 72ED - I have a CPC925 and I can only dream of that field of view!

Hi all, had a try at another EAA session on the evening of 16/06/23 into the morning of 17/06/23. The results are a bit disappointing, I think the fact that we didn't have complete darkness, local light pollution and poor seeing didn't help! Anyway, here are the results - in the spirit of showing the poor sessions as well as the good!

Here are a few more images I managed to grab between clouds while out looking for the Supernova.

This evening I managed to capture an image of the recently discovered Supernova in M101 - It is designated SN 2023ixf. You can see it, as a bright spot, in the upper spiral arm in the attached image, just below and to the left of NGC 5461. The image is a stack of 97 frames totalling 873 secs of exposure. Taken with a SV705C camera through my CPC925 and 0.63x reducer. No processing, just stretched in Sharpcap. It is awe inspiring to see the power of such an event!

Hi Everyone, please see attached some more EAA images from the evening of 18/05/2023 taken with my CPC925 and SV705C OSC camera. I am uploading the Astrometry.net annotated image as well as each plain image to allow viewers to locate the targets. (I hope this works OK it will save me tagging each image) Please let me have any feedback you may have?

Hi Everyone, please see attached some more EAA images from this morning of 19/05/2023 taken with my CPC925 and SV705C OSC camera. I am uploading the Astrometry.net annotated image as well as each plain image to allow viewers to locate the targets. (I hope this works OK it will save me tagging each image) Please let me have any feedback you may have?

Thanks Peter, that explains a lot… I sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that because the software can do something, then I MUST use it… I am coming to the conclusion that for EAA it is best to keep it simple and be more productive at actually observing amazing things… which after all is why we are doing it! The flip side is the unknown and that eureka moment when you enable a setting and all of a sudden your average view becomes a great view! I guess as Pete (Xio1996) told me - sometimes you have to stop faffing and get on with the observing (my words - not his, he is far more eloquent 😉 )

Thanks again Pete, the recommended settings I was referring to are the ones in the smart histogram ‘brain’ dialogue box, once you have run the sensor calibration, it uses the results and the limiting parameters you dial in to recommend gain, exposure and recommended number of subs…it does a scan of the current live target image to decide. So far for me it has worked quite well… when I put in limiting parameters of say max 10 sec exposure and total exposure limit of half an hour it tends to recommend a gain close to the gain crossover point… for my camera it is around 295 and then around 200 subs of 3-5 sec (at least in that order of magnitude) I seem to have got reasonable results after less than half of the recommended total exposure time - it seems that after a certain no of stacked images the gain in clarity is not worth the extra wait… at least for my eyes and equipment! After all that, it sounds like the other Peters empirically derived method shows that using a fixed preset exposure has reasonable results and allows easier production and use of calibration frames… I guess the big question is does this approach with good cal frames give better results than trying to optimise the gain/exposure ratio to minimise noise and maximise light capture… Hopefully we will get some clear skies again soon so I can try some different options… I guess this is all part of the fun! As I have said before, I am still constantly amazed at what the EAA method allows me to see from my back garden in light polluted Margate - it is more than I ever hoped for from home astronomy, and as you said - those eyepiece things now seem assigned to the bottom drawer! With your help I now have the outside scope setup nicely and other than a couple of trips outside to check the power lead is not fouling I can sit inside and align, focus and capture remotely in the warm!

I like this approach Peter - will definitely give it a try!

Hi guys, I have a few more questions, which also seem to have a bearing on whether flats and darks work in Sharpcap. What colour space do you guys use is RAW 8 bit reasonable or is RAW 16 preferable? And when do you need to change colour space? Do you guys use region of interest and routinely change the capture area? If so when and why - or is it just a simple matter of framing? To Bin or not to Bin… thoughts and benefits/downsides? I found out the hard way that flats and darks (obviously) have to match capture area and Colour space - I felt such a plonker when I tried to apply different size and different colour space D&F’s… Der! and final question for today… how do you ‘nudge’ the black and intermediate level bars in the histogram… I really struggle with the resolution of dragging with the mouse?

Thanks for the advice Pete, I appreciate your thoughts… Do you think it’s better to try and use recommended gain and exposure settings for each target then? That of course is a ball ache for matching the darks, I made a flats ‘filter’ out of two layers of T-shirt material and an embroidery hoop which works ok on those days when the sky gives a reasonable illumination - will probably try the light panel off Amazon too…

Thanks for the advice Peter - I will try your technique regarding darks - will let you know how I get on! TBH I have been using the smart histogram for each target and using its recommendations for exposure and gain - it does seem to give reasonable results - down side is that the gain changes for each target! Do you think it is feasible to run the dark tool prior to each target?

Hi Jonathan, the next image after the Iris nebula is C7, then two images of C12, and two of C21… I assume that you cannot see the file names of the images - does anyone know how to show the image file names in a post?

Thanks Steve, yeah it was busy but fun… I would really like to get the noise down a bit more if possible!