kirkster501

Likewise Dave. Day before yesterday and yesterday as well.... Gosh how unbelievably typical.... I think I need a brandy...😂

... that said, just imagine if it had been a total eclipse and we were clouded out.....😱

I begged my boss to let me have today off work today as well for this event 🤬. At least I have defrosted my freezer this morning 😂

Exactly that. I did plenty of test runs. I have seen a glimpse of it through the high haze so that's better than nothing.

Not even had a visual glimpse as yet. Fingers crossed though. To make it worse, it is clear from mid afternoon, after the eclipse has ended 😂. Oh well.... Astronomy in the UK, eh?🙄😂

I don't think it is happening here in Nott's today. Maybe I might get the odd glimpse through the clouds but no chance of any images I think. Fingers crossed it changes and more gaps emerge in the clouds.

Just masses of grey cloud with tiny breaks. Breaks are not substantial enough to get aligned.

If you do get a clear sky then enjoy the eclipse folks.

Blame me guys.... Guilty as charged..... I just acquired a Lunt 60Tha scope...🙈 What makes it so typical is that we have glorious sunshine in the days leading up to this morning and also it's clearing up this afternoon 🙈

You need to debayer the image as Atreta says.

It is not looking good in Nottingham 😰🙈

Many thanks! I shall look at those

If you get approached by three or four guys, forget all you see in the movies. Even if you are a black belt (I am) you have little chance of fighting off three guys, especially if they are armed in any way. Forget the Steven Siegal and Bruce Lee films folks. Hand the stuff over and save your life. All that said, rather unlikely this will happen in the UK. A lot of this is as Olly says, an irrational fear of the dark. But as the OP says, when out "country style" it is unerring the noises you hear. And that is here in the UK, where there are no harmful animals. In the USA it is a different thing altogether with Coyotes, Wolves, Bears, Snakes, Alligators and all manner of nasties that can kill...!

I will give that a try, thanks for the suggestion, I have indeed been using the right hand side ports.

Yes I may give that a try, thanks, nothing to lose.

My existing [old] Windows 10 PC laptop is 128G of internal SSD but it is slow - 18fps. I tried every tinkering possible but cannot get the speed higher than that.

Astronomy events are nearly always rained off or clouded out mate - number one rule of astronomy in the UK!

I normally do my imaging from my observatory and the high speed PC I have in there but I am quite keen to chase after some solar and lunar ISS transits and so I need a reasonable performance (and cost) laptop for high frame rate astro capture. My ASI174MM can pump out 130 full frames per second and my existing laptop, even though USB3, is nowhere near capable of handling that, a paltry 15 fps. To my surprise my Macbook Pro 15" 2017 i7 / 16G RAM / 1TB SSD (with USB C ports and so I have to use an adapter) is also poor performance wise too at high frame rate capture - perhaps because of the adapter. I am very surprised at this and expected way better performance from it I want to buy a refurbished i5/i7 system, 8Gig RAM minimum with at least a 500G SSD and two or three USB3 ports. Amazon have refurbished Lenono T450 series and I thought they might work well. Anyone have any insights to share please? Steve

Hi all, How do you balance exposure for proms and disk please? I have acquired a Lunt 60Tha and love it. I expose for disk at about 70% histogram and get a good disk. But then in processing, to reveal the proms form the disk image I have to aggressively stretch because the proms are not exposed enough - even if I try and mask the disk - and the mask creates weird artefacts around the rim because pumping up the stretch causes some expansion of the disk around the edge of the mask. IS there a way to combine an exposure for disk AND an exposure for proms and then blend them somehow? Thank you in advance! Steve

Just a QQ.... I've left it out tracking in the sun and sun is still bang in the middle of the EP Is it OK to leave the scope like this for hours? It doesn't "use up" the Etalon's lifetime or anything?

Bought an immaculate, used Lunt 60Tha/B1200 with a Solar Seeker tracking mount from a lovely forum member. I have been after one of these for about two years, a B1200 with the Feathertouch focuser but just keep missing out on one. I have not been prepared to pay the insane money these things cost new - especially with the Feathertouch upgrade - and that's when stock is available. I want to add some other dimensions to astronomy - especially here in UK when we can have glorious days only for it to cloud over at night. I have three words. Wow, wow, wow!!!! Did I say wow? I'm still in shock almost, speechless at the orange peel detail, sunspots and the proms. WOW!! Started to see the fine mottled detail as the pressure tuner was wound about half way in. I will write up properly when I am not at work . I want to do some more observing but got to go to work Hope to take some images later if I can sneak out of work for a bit!

I was also going to suggest the focus. I have borrowed one from a very kind forum member and I notice focus is critical and not so easy to eyeball. If I buy one I will definitely motor focus it.

Hi all, I ran my imaging rig on a few globulars in Ophiuchus the other night (M10, M12 and M14). Just 10 x 180 seconds in each of R,G,B on all three of the clusters so as to get something in the bag this time of year of almost zero imaging time. I used my Atik460 on the TEC140 with field flattener and Astrodon filters. Autofocus running. Blue and green channels 100% bang on. To my surprise the red channel is not as good. Just about usable but definitely not as good as the B and G and slightly "blobbier". I am surprised at this - I would expect the blue to be more effected by the lower declination. I am using an IR Block filter in front of the whole imaging train in the nosepiece in front of the filter wheel and therefore IR pollution - not that there is any in that direction anyway - should not be an issue either. I can share some subs later. Given, it is not the best time of year for imaging, it never got 100% dark, I am imaging these objects not far above some neighbouring houses (rising heat from the day radiating off the roofs and affecting the red more maybe?) and they are lowish objects (although not unduly so) but still, I thought a bit odd, especially since the B and G are perfect. Any thoughts please guys? Thanks, Steve

I am using APS-C for my BabyQ (85). THis was with no flattener and the scope at native FL. 2013 FSQ build.