saac

Lovely image. 

Jim 

Cracking image, M31 is my favourite astro body, so majestic. More importantly stu are you feeling the enjoyment coming back?  I think it will quicken as we move progressively towards the autumn then into the winter. 

Jim 

I can provide a box full of those , never been used, yours for £1. You'll need to pay postage however and insurance is at your own risk  

ps - nice pointing by the way  

Jim 

5 minutes ago, CheshireChris said:

Thanks Jim,

 

Yes, couldn't agree more about trying various settings out - problem is good, clear nights seem far between in NW England this year (and this my 1st year of imaging): it's a trade off between trying various settings and as you say... 'get the images in'.

 

Chris

 

I totally agree, and we all feel that pressure, the last thing we want to do is ruin a potential and rare imaging session because of an incorrect setting on our equipment. I would start off with the default settings and get things like your guiding going reliable. And then of course there is the other massive learning curve the post processing. My biggest challenge is skill fade as I tend to forget what worked well and how I did things from one year end to another.  

Jim

This is a little bit like asking for the secret chord David played   My honest and best advice would be try different settings and see what shakes out as best.  If you get good results with the default gain then use it, perhaps try increasing it to do a comparison on the same subject. A higher gain would generally be required for the more fainter subjects but it comes of course with the penalty of briming more noise , but don't be afraid to play around with it.  Temperature - 10 oC  is a typical default with cooled cameras and again is fine - stick with it  there are plenty of other things to concentrate on at the movement. Your best Bin setting is, for optimal performance,  determined by your chip size and telescope focal length and seeing  - it affects over/undersampling.  You can use the the calculator (provided under the menu tab Resources) to have a look at the effects of binning and how well your current setup is matched .  Calibration frames - there is a lot of differing opinion out there regarding use of bias with CMOS cameras - I still do it together with flats and darks - the ASiAir makes the task of acquiring calibration an easy task so it's no real hassle. Dithering, I use when I remember to set it, a dither every 2 or 3 subs, if you set it at a higher frequency you will quickly prolong your imaging session at risk of running into clouds or bed time or even worst time to get up time!  

Ok, so joking aside I do think we can get too focused on getting the perfect optimised setting. Sometimes we forget to "get the images in" . There is a saying in aviation "fly the aircraft" and I think that translates well to astro imaging!  Maybe you could take one or two of the variables above and play around at changing them one at a time to see what effect they have then take it from there. Have fun.

CCD calculator https://astronomy.tools/calculators/ccd_suitability

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor falls, the major lifts
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Jim 

Clouds on, clouds off, clouds on, clouds off...... You get the picture, gave up on trying to collimate the scope and picked up a pair of binoculars that I discovered I had forgotten about! Managed to find Andromeda and had a wee quick marvel at my favourite faint fuzzie just to make sure it was still there, it was   Then clouds on again,,, going to bed  

Jim 

Good set of images there showing that the Sun is still active. I do like that Calcium K rendition. 

Jim 

1 minute ago, Tony Acorn said:

If the temperature gradients increase between start and end of sessions, the use of one may become necessary but I have dew heaters on my guide scope and the main scope which may mitigate.

* StellaMyra 80ED f/6.25, ASi 585MC, AE 50mm f/4 finder scope, ASi 120MM, ASi EAF, ASi AM3, ASiAir-Mini

To be honest I think I have only ever noticed the Air interrupting an image run twice because of a temperature change to re focus. I think there are many other factors more likely to spoil an image session  - most likely clouds or poor seeing than temperature change  

I think dew control though is a separate issue. The Air is measuring air temperature because temperature has a direct impact on the refractive index of the air which in turn will change the focus conditions. Dew control isn't really a focusing issue though. 

Jim

1 hour ago, tomato said:

At the end of the day, you want to refocus if anything causes the FWHM to deteriorate (eg temp, sky elevation, focuser shift etc) so if the ASIAir enables you to do this then isn’t the temp probe a bit superfluous? Of course the refocus may not be able to fix all of these contributors but that’s about all you can do.

I don't think it is superfluous at all it is simply there to re focus given a significant change in temperature. I have mine set to refocus with a 2 degree change in temperature and on meridian flip.  I shoot OSC so no filter changes as such mid imagining session. To date I haven't had any concerns at all with how focusing has been performing. I auto focus at the start of a run and leave it to itself, so far all has been well, keep it simple it just works.  

Jim 

Welcome to the forum hal9550. Lots of great information and support to be found here.  

Jim 

6 minutes ago, AstroMuni said:

Does the ASIAir allow you to add a weather station or Weather services?

I use Stellarmate and I use an OpenWeathermap driver to provide the temperature data for deciding when to refocus.

No it doesn't offer that in any way. The temperature sensor is the only external environmental input. 

Jim  

24 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

anyone know of, or the general name of a filter holder holder? what do i do with my uv/ir cut filter and holder when i pull it out and put the dnb filter holder in instead? some sort of external filter holder holster?

im sure there must be something for rasa owners who don't use filter wheels, surely? they won't just have a tupawear box with their filters and holders in? best i can do is the box my spare filter holder came in i guess?

There are lots of designs available for 3d printed filter cases. Also cases to hold for the filters when left in their filter drawers which is probably an easier method if you swap out filters regularly. 

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5537675

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6305446

https://www.printables.com/model/806383-parametric-solar-filter-box-openscad

https://www.printables.com/model/267124-starizona-filter-slider-storage-box-rasa-8

Jim 

Great result for a first image with your new setup @smashing. I think you are going to love using the ASiAir Plus it really is a fantastic bit of kit and the more you play with it the more it seems to deliver. I like the colour of your image as @Clarkey has noted but for me (purely personal taste)  I would have liked a few more stars. But that said I would be happy with that image, you've nailed the noise for sure.  Definitely given your new setup a good confidence check.  

Jim 

2 minutes ago, 900SL said:

1 hr integration too...

Remarkable. Even putting aside the technical achievement I think that just has to be one of the most beautiful of astro subjects. This particular image has to be an exemplar surely. 

Jim 

3 hours ago, 900SL said:

here it is

 

He's an absolute wizard at Pixinsight

 

Wow!

Jim 

2 hours ago, Jannerland said:

@saac Jim  - I'm sure we're in for a bit of an adventure 🙂 Happy to share notes as and when the sky clears to gives us something other than water vapour to point at..

Thanks, I think we are in for an interesting ride. I had just taken out my UV filter but I think I should put it back in and only change one thing at a time! I have bought and Orion artificial star to see if I can use it for collimation in the day time. I have my doubt that it will work, but it will be worth a shot.

Jim

Beautifully done. 

Jim 

Hi Rob, looks like we are on a similar learning curve, I got hold of a RASA 8 a few weeks ago and I'm working to get it set up for the winter season. I'm imaging with OSC (ZWO 183MC Pro) and have fitted a Starizona filter drawer, currently carrying a UV cut filter.  I understand that this gives the correct back focus which seems to be confirmed with my first light image. I do however have what I think is a collimation (possibly tilt)  issue to sort out . Impatiently waiting for the next clear night to start playing around again. It will be good to hear how you get on. 

This was a quick trial 30 x 60s subs then processed in PI. Close up of stars is unprocessed single light sub.

Jim 

25 minutes ago, Alan White said:

Postie yesterday, but opened today while sat in the caravan, as away.

A used very fine book from @Stridor, the inner wrapping paper packaging made me laugh, told the Mrs it was a present.

 

I hope it will fire me up to widen my double star observing and more than the obvious few.

 

I was wondering how the posite found you in your caravan and then I re read your post. I'm being a bit slow today  

Jim 

11 minutes ago, GTom said:

Pure distraction and PR. Question is actual real life performance, streamlined bug-free software environment and proper QC for the hardware (beyond that screw...). Those are the targets of my research and actually very hard to get independent advice.

Of course it is. I'd be inclined to ask why it was necessary to specify that particular alloy. Was there a particular concern over wear, corrosion or did the design lead to unexpected loads. Then again, use of the alloy may well be design practice with strain wave drive mounts. 

Jim 

2 hours ago, Elp said:

Titanium screws? Even in heavy engineering steel is good enough.

It's the next fad in the fashion wars - bright primary colour anodising is so last year! Whoever specified titanum should be sacked for crimes against engineering. But will we buy into, most likely  

Jim 

4 minutes ago, Elp said:

The sky atlas also now has a mosaic feature making it even easier. I do wish the atlas was more visual though like stellarium or sky safari, even if it's on target its difficult looking at what you're seeing, say if you want to rotate your camera to suit the orientation of the target.

Yeah the mosaic routine assistant is the next feature I want to learn how to use.  I've watched a couple of tutorials and had an initial play with it  and it seems pretty intuitive. I do wish these things this came with an emulator mode so you could familiarise and train with it during the day. 

Jim

33 minutes ago, Budgie1 said:

Think what it's like to live here! I've managed 14 imaging sessions so far this year, and that's with the Obsy, and my weather station has recorded 1.32m (4 ½ feet) of rain so far in 2024. What makes it so wet on the West Coast are the mountains. The warm moist air coming in from the Atlantic hits the mountains and is forced to rise. As the air rises the moisture condenses into  water droplets, which become too heavy to remain airborne, so it rains.

Having said that, when it's clear then it's good. Where I live is Bortle 2/3, so naked eye Milky Way. 😁

I'm lucky that I'm a regular visitor to the Small Isles, with work, but you have to be resilient to live there as you can be cut off for days in the Winter months.

I'm originally from the west coast (Glasgow) but during my time in the RAF I got to know Morayshire and Fife well being stationed at RAF Kinloss, Lossiemouth and Leuchars.  One of the things that struck me immediately was the difference in the weather patterns, especially the amount of sunny days, compared to what I had experienced growing up in the west. Morayshire in particular was just gorgeous and when I eventually retired from the RAF I seriously considered relocating there. In the end we opted for Fife as it gave easy access to the likes of Edinburgh and Glasgow for work. Dundee is only a few miles aways and it routinely wins the crown of the sunniest city in Scotland. If only that translated to clear nights. I think if I were to move again it would definitely be to Morayshire though - great weather, beaches, countryside (access to the mountains) and of course Speyside and its whisky  

Jim 

23 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

FLO done it again only paid for this yesterday afternoon just come now less than 24hrs later. 

We are spoiled by FLO's service, in a nice way  

Jim 

2 hours ago, 900SL said:

Yep, I pulled up an old image and it works. Very handy, I can use my manual rotator to match a previous session. It's quite important with a 533 sensor as you don't have a lot of free real estate to crop into

That's great. I wasn't sure if the angle displayed was the frame rotation or not to match the camera.  I wonder what other wee secrets are hiding in the Air's operating system  

Jim