Mal22

Great job! Which PI tools do you use for the colour details? I’m currently processing my own M51 data but can’t get a result I’m happy with. Thanks

I use this website which is pretty reliable https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/outdoorsports/seeing/london_united-kingdom_2643743 I also use Cloudy Nights and if the two concur, happy days

Thank you, very helpful response! So my misguided assumption was that using a Barlow would ultimately yield more detail in the galaxy, but clearly that’s not the case? 20 hours with a 2x Barlow would get no more detail and resolution than 10 hours without. That settles it then. No Barlow. I’m in the UK too which it seems is just one big permanent cloud now anyway so a decision to double the necessary imaging time would have needed real justification…

Hi everyone, Now that we’re in galaxy season I’m weighing up whether or not to add my 2x Barlow lens to the imaging train to get a bit more up close and personal with the likes of M51, M101 and M81 + 82. What are the considerations in doing so? I know that it will double the F ratio and therefore I would need twice as much imaging time, but is that a worthwhile trade off to get a closer up image? Or is sticking with the non-Barlow field of view and going for a closer crop when processing a better approach? I tend to get good guiding over long exposures (with guide scope/camera) with good stars so I think that will still be ok. My set up is a WO Zenithstar 73 and ZWO ASI294MC Pro. Below is the current FOV on M51 without a Barlow, and an image I did with this set up last summer (before I knew how to use PixInsight properly…) Thanks for any advice!

Agreed. If for whatever reason someone has an issue with someone’s question or post - think it, say it out loud if you need to, shout it at the wall. But don’t type it.

Yep. I’ve seen blue stuff before, and this is it. @gorann great image!

Really helpful, thanks! Funnily enough over the last few days I’ve been searching for an updated PI workflow incorporating the AI tools, and THIS video is exactly what I’d been looking for. Perfect, thanks!

Excellent image! And very delicately processed. You should be very pleased with this. What have you been using to learn PixInsight? I’ve been at it for about 6 months now and steadily getting there, but still a lot to learn and I can’t quite achieve what I’m aspiring to. Mostly YouTube tutorials so far and recently bought Warren A Keller’s book Inside PixInsight, which is good and easy to follow. What’s been working for you? Inevitably, I think I’ll end up buying the Adam Block videos as everyone says they’re a game changer….

Depending on where the objects you’re observing are in relation to the meridian line, a mount may go round the houses rather than “as the crow flies” to avoid the scope crashing into the mount during tracking. Clever mounts will also flip automatically during a tracking session when the object gets close to the meridian line, if “Meridian flip” is enabled in settings. And collisions do happen! I smashed the thermometer on my WO Z73 focus knob because I’d accidentally disabled meridian flip and it grinded into the mount for goodness knows how long… it could have been a lot worse! However, I will defer to brighter minds than mine on this particular instance, as given the time of your post yesterday and the objects in question, I don’t think the meridian line will have been a factor…

Well this is just ridiculous… An absolutely incredible image. So much to see and so much depth. Wonderful stuff.

It is deep space imaging where you would take lots of exposures, hours and hours worth, and stack them together, which certainly does take a long time. For planets, the wobbly atmosphere and rotation is more of a challenge. I’ve not used a DSLR so can’t comment in relation to that process. I use a dedicated astronomy camera to take a short video, maybe 3 to 5 mins depending on the speed a particular planet spins. That video will consist of thousands of frames, so we then use software to select a percentage of the frames where the atmosphere was least wobbly, this might only be 20%, but could be less or more. The software then stacks those selected frames together to produce a clearer image, but it is a far quicker process than stacking deep space object images, just a few minutes.

Outstanding image!

Here is the difference between the 102 and the 127 using a 10mm eyepiece for Saturn, Jupiter and the Moon. The outside circle is how much it will fill the view on the 102, and the inside the 127.

I should add, that unfortunately there is little to no value in astronomy through a window, open or closed. If the window is closed then viewing through glass will heavily distort the view, and if the window is open then the heat waves escaping out of the window into the cooler air will make for very wobbly moon/planets etc, like they are underwater.

Second this. @Lung you say that the children are unlikely to want to spend too much time outside at night, and that budget isn’t a big concern. The Seestar S50 means you can plonk it outside with minimal (almost no) set up, and then sit inside with the children, controlling it with and displaying it on your phone/tablet screen. It will align itself and find objects in the sky, that you pick from a list of what’s in view that night. and it comes with a built in light pollution filter.

Agree entirely with this. It’s not just that those who are more experienced forget how difficult it is starting out, I also think that perspective on cost also goes out the window. Yes, a lot of us have rigs that cost thousands of pounds, and we’ve gotten used to it eating up our wallets, but I constantly see responses to new starters along the lines of “well, if you’re spending £120, I’d recommend saving up more and going for this £400 dob instead which is much better”. Anyone new to a hobby needs a bit of instant gratification in the early days to “catch the buzz”. The Starsense Explorer seems like a very sensible choice with that in mind.

Yes mine was last night

The sky cleared nicely for me around 8pm and I saw at least 10 in the space of 40 minutes, before cloud returned and my 5 month old boy awoke (presumably with fomo for the meteor shower…) Some really bright ones too and three in one minute! Mostly in the region of Taurus and Perseus.

I’m still fairly new to this but I liked the 12 hour Heart Nebula I did a couple of months ago. I’m told I should make the reds more vibrant, but this has a nice natural feel to me.

Ah, thanks I stand corrected! Useful to know!

I know you’d probably like a simple answer on this! And that simple answer is, yes - either of those scopes would do the job. However, on the Celestron one for an extra £4 this one gives you more bang for your buck. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes/celestron-astromaster-lt70az-f10-refractor-telescope.html Just to stray into the not so simple answer territory, two of the biggest considerations when picking a telescope are aperture and focal length. Aperture is the diameter of the telescope I.e how much light can get into it. The more light that can get in, the more detail becomes visible. Of the two telescopes you’ve shared, the Celestron has a 60mm aperture, and the Nat Geo one has 114mm - so the Nat Geo one captures significantly more light and therefore more detail. BUT, the focal length of a telescope is how much magnification it is capable of. The higher the focal length, the more magnification. Back to the two options you’ve shared, the Celestron has 700mm focal length, and the Nat Geo has 500mm. So the Celestron has the better magnification. I won’t go into how the following calculation works… but if you use the 10mm eyepiece that each comes with, the Celestron will give you 70x magnification and the Nat Geo 50x. So, combining the two factors, the Nat Geo is capable of showing more detail, but the objects will be smaller. The Celestron will show less detail, but objects will be more magnified. Also, if you just looked through both side by side into the night sky, the Nat Geo would show a lot more stars than the Celestron, and more likely to see a hint of a fuzzy grey galaxy. As I said in my earlier reply though, I would encourage starting out with the moon, and for that the extra mag on the Celestron makes it the better scope. But, pay the extra £4 for the one I included a link to above and you’ll get 10mm more aperture.

I loved my microscope as a child. I vividly remember looking at spiders legs, fly wings, hair, anything that would fit between the slides! My parents had no interest in science and left me to it but I could spend hour after hour with it. I guess to some degree, you either are that kind of child or you’re not. Other kids were probably outside playing and socialising

It’s lovely that your little girl has taken an interest in astronomy It is, as has been commented above, a complicated hobby - above all else a hobby that requires a lot of patience - and often newcomers are disappointed when the expectation (based on incredible images online/school books) meets the reality (of what can be seen by a beginner scope). For those that fall in love with it, as you develop and spend a bit (a lot…) more money, the gap between what you can see and photograph from your own garden and the amazing school book images closes significantly. But, of course, everyone has to dip a toe in first. Last year, I was thrilled when my 7 year old niece became very interested in space following some lessons at school. She’s a bright and studious little girl, with a good attention span, and the way she retained knowledge about the planets, stars, even nebulae was very impressive. Being the family space nerd, her parents asked my advice on a beginner scope. Weighing up their budget and other considerations, I recommended this https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-mercury-607-telescope.html Note, I’m not now recommending buying this scope for reasons I’ll set out below. When it arrived and there was a clear night, I went round to show her how to use it all. There was a full moon, and Jupiter and Mars were both visible. Ultimately, I was a bit disappointed because even though the telescope did a reasonable job (for the cost), my nieces attention span - albeit good for most 7 year olds - just wasn’t up to it. She was quickly running around the garden (clearly I was a boring teacher!) It can take a long, patient time to find objects like planets in the telescope lens, even when you can see exactly where they are with the naked eye! Obviously, I did the finding, but her disappointment at Jupiter and Mars, both of which are tiny in any beginner scopes, was quite clear. It didn’t help that she’d seen them before through my own much larger and more expensive scope, and in school books. Understandably, to her it just wasn’t what she’d expected to see. So, after all of that (if you’ve made it this far), some practical advice: 1) Focus on the moon! It looks amazing through beginner scopes and I remember being wowed by it as a child through a very basic telescope. Get her excited in the moon, learn to recognise some of the regions where the Apollos landed and see if she can spot those regions through the scope. You could even get posters for her that highlight the sites. The Sea of Tranquility is easy to pick out, and that’s where Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon. Again, expectation management is key, the largest telescope on earth isn’t big enough to spot the flag on the moon. With a beginner scope, the field of view is probably about the size of a continent - but trust me the detail is still wonderful. 2) Read this excellent post, and particularly scroll down to the planet images. It shows the comparison between the professional planet images, and what you’ll see in a small scope. 3) Make it as easy as possible. I’ve never used this particular beginner scope, but its ability to connect to a phone for a sky tour and guide her through how to move the telescope to a desired object could make all the difference in keeping your little girls interest and capturing the imagination https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes/celestron-starsense-explorer-lt-80-az-refractor-telescope.html Even though it’s more money, if I could go back I would strongly recommend this for my niece instead. The reality is, at that age they need a fair bit of instant gratification, and scopes like this may help. I hope that all makes sense and is helpful Best of luck!

@carastro Where is the Bortle 4 site that you visit outside of London? I’m in Essex in Bortle 6 so good to know what better options might be within reach! Thanks

Yep! I’m in Rayleigh, Essex and I spend a lot more time watching videos of people doing my hobby than actually doing it myself because of the weather. Still, it keeps it special when a clear night does roll around.