kirkster501

I am of the same opinion regarding the weather. Another year of this god-awful appalling astro weather and I will move to a DSLR and lenses for wide-field only imaging and upgrade my Dob for visual. Since last May it has been utterly hopeless in the UK.

34 x 240s. Samyang 135mm at F2.8 and QHY268C on a NEQ6, guided.

I keep all the good files - lights, flats, flat-darks, bias, darks. I use a darks/bias library that I refresh twice per year so it is not that onerous. I am far from an expert but I have reprocessed my images in light of my improving skills numerous times and I am glad I kept the data. I keep it all on my NAS. In 11 years of imaging I now have about 5TB of astro data on my 40TB RAID6 NAS. Storage is cheap nowadays. However, I do get rid of the intermediate files that get created as part of processing. No need to keep those. I never keep the raw capture files from lunar/planetary/solar. I only keep the outputs from Autostakkert.

I assume you are using autofocus? The fact that the central stars are good suggest your focus is good but, still, it is worth pointing out just as Robin has done, that focus distance changes in the CFZ at F3 are minute. Any issues with the chip not being 100% orthogonal with the illuminated field of the telescope will cause these issues you discuss. Are you 100% sure you have no sag whatsoever in the imaging train? Is everything screw-in in the imaging train? There is no slippage in the focuser when pointed at high angles? I had that issue on my FSQ85 focuser and had to tighten it up since I too had this issue when using the reducer. Is the telescope itself collimated and producing a flat field? These questions are not easy to answer, I concede.

I upgraded to Windows 11. I am now getting a crash of NINA when I take a sub with the Atik, even Artemis (Atik capture software) is having a wobble. I need to investigate more - at least a firm crash is something to work with whereas a disconnect after a few hours is a nightmare. I was also getting a peer collision last night for no apparent reason as well when I tried to use my FSQ rig side mounted. So frustrating; we wait for months for a few clear skies and when we get them sometimes we have issue after issue. I will get some longer USB leads and wire directly back to the PC ports. Some good tips here too such as USB power down, USB controller issues etc: What to Do If Your USB Port Stops Working (pcmag.com)

Still disconnecting, Lovely clear night and I've been fighting this issue all night. Will buy some longer USB cables to eliminate the hub. Gave up on AP and doing some visual.

HI Steve, thanks for the suggestion, yes mate changed the cable and tried it on different ports of the quality Startech USB hub atop the mount. It has been working happily like this for ten years though and the hub is fine with everything else still. Next thing to try is to connect the camera direct to the PC and not via the USB hub. I also wiped the drivers. Rebooted and reinstalled them. I've got the camera taking BIAS and darks now and been working for 2 hours so far. I am not convinced though!

Hello, Been having a intermittent issue with my 460EX. I start imaging and randomly after maybe an hour or more, the camera disconnects. Sometimes I cannot connect at the start of the imaging session and have to power on and off a few times before it will connect. I cannot determine if it is a camera problem or a PC driver issue. I hope the latter since I have built a new imaging PC. That said, the camera is now of a venerable vintage - 2012 I bought it - but it is still superb paired to the TEC140 and I see no need to update it. You can still even buy these cameras they are so good still. I have installed the drivers from the Atik All-in-1 driver pack "SetupAtikCamerasUniversal-2023.07.14" so they are recent and up to date. Windows 10 and all up to date. However, when I look at the driver in device manager it states driver 4.1.0.1 According to Atik website Change Log - Atik Cameras (atik-cameras.com) the latest driver is at least 4.2.2.9. How can I get this latest driver - which I thought would have been installed in the last driver pack? Where do I see this installed DLLs and ASCOM versions? What is making me worry a bit that it might be hardware is that I get the same problem with the native driver and also the ASCOM driver. Any thoughts please guys? Thanks, Steve

I never tire of adding more and more to this image, such a rewarding and magnificent object that even 15 years into AP I keep coming back to it and I always see something new. This is now up to 16 hours - I added a bit more luminance two weeks ago when we - at last - had a few clear hours before the moon came up. FSQ85 and Atik460. Astrodon LRGBHa. There are other faint background galaxies in here too if you look for them. Steve

I love this object and have done it numerous times. I love yours, one of the best I have ever seen.

The Edge C925 is pushing the NEQ6 to its limits in my opinion at its focal length for AP purposes, great mount that it is ( I have one and a C925). Superb IC1396 by the way.

A cool $60000 even in the US. By the time it has been shipped and duties paid in the UK it would be a £80k scope and you'd need a large obs and a tall pier to mount it in. What a scope that would be. Yuri makes four of them per year on average he told me. I have the TEC140 which is also amazing.

Wow, very nice. They could have saved $10 billion on the JWST and gave it to you

I'm loving it. Superb! Well done.

My counsel and my experience with foriegn astro and girlfriends and I accept that YMMV: there's a time and a place for everything. Don't ruin your holiday and upset her on the basis of some astronomy when you are meant to be on holiday with her. I just pack a pair of bins and do some wide angle stuff with a camera on a regular tripod and fast exposures Now then, if in your case she is fully supportive then happy days. But if she shows pushback then I'd counsel caution. I limit myself to using the bins or my camera on the balcony whilst she is getting ready (hours 😂). I also want to do dark skies astro in a southern locale and will do so on my own or with astro minded buddies when she has a girly weekend.

An 8" Dob remains good advice IMO although we always have to remember that not everyone is going to be able to (or willing) to collimate a telescope.

We just have to hang on in and hope that the clouds will eventually part for a few nights. As I said earlier, I am enjoying what I have at Kirkster501 towers and not spending any more major money on astronomy. Maybe a couple of lenses that I can also use for terrestrial.

I’ve also lost my Astro mojo a bit of late but I know I will come back to it again. Fundamentally, I just love it despite the UK weather doing everything it can to stop me/us. Never forget the stars aren’t going anywhere, after all. However, other interests and priorities have taken centre stage in my life whilst we are under the UK permacloud this summer. Autumn has also been diabolical in recent years too.

I haven't spent any money on astro for three years now and took the decision to just enjoy what I have. For sure there is stuff that I would like - and can afford. I'd love a pair of APM 150 bins for example and there was a pair of them on ABS for ages. But it is impossible to justify it to myself, let alone my fiancee, considering the pitifully small number of clear nights we get in the UK.

A combination of their long focal length and, as Michael stated, tube currents and the system reaching thermal equilibrium with the surroundings. Also, the design of the SCT with the large central obstruction causes a softness of the image. Larger SCT's need to live outside in an observatory IMO to maintain this thermal equilibrium. In the UK bringing them outside from the house or even a cooler garage they sometimes never reach thermal equilibrium for that night's observing. So why are SCT's so popular many ask? They are quite cheap to make and offer a lot of bang for the buck. I love my C925. I think I have had better views of Jupiter through my TEC140 - much smaller aperture - than I ever have with my C925 or even my Meade 14" whilst I owned it. The image, whilst small in the case of Jupiter, is razor sharp. That's why there is a strong market for large premium refractors despite their smaller aperture than a cheaper SCT; the views and ease of use for visual and imaging is just so good.

What happened with the update/upgrade guys??? Why so long to upgrade - it was down for 2 -3 days. Being involved in major IT switchovers myself it sounds like you encountered problems. Did you move hosts completely? DNS or a database issue? Backups failed?? What software do you use for the fourm - it looks like phpDB ????

I love it. You need dark skies for this as well. I tried the same in my Bortle 5/6 and had to throw the data away.

Both are nice. However in the version with the X-suite tools you have lost your star colour and the sky is too dark. Also some of the HII regions have gone. I actually prefer your 2021 version, personally speaking.

NINA. Brilliant software. Work at your meridian flip problem, it's not the fault of the software. I did use SGP but I do not like their licensing model change and I also found it increasingly buggy and lock-up prone.

^^^^Yes, looks like this will have to be the way forward. I agree, they erected the large sections on site. Only the roof was built in situ. They were superb craftsman, I will say that for them. It is shame they went under. But more of a concern they ripped people off and I am sorry for those folks that were.