kirkster501

Yes I am schooled in SGP focus on my wide field 135mm lens rig and the motor and belt rig I set up. Does this EoS adapter you describe also control the focus as well without resorting to such measures? What issues did you encounter?

What are the individual subs like please? Trying to judge the coma without the stacking that can remove some of it.

Hi mate, how do you connect the Sigma 105 to the ASI please? Via a Canon adapter? I understand you can only control the aperture of the Sigma lens from a DSLR - there is no manual ability to control the aperture? So how to wet it? Fabulous image by the way!

I will go back to my 3c273 subs to see if I can find the jet on them. https://skastro.net/quasar-3c273-in-virgo/ ...no sign of the jet in there as it stands but maybe if I use some planetary techniques I could drag something out.

...and yet many constantly curse it when it is out. Can spend a lifetime getting to know it, as Sir Patrick did.

Brilliant bro'! Superb detail, where are you imaging from to get steadiness like that?!

Very nice. Nice colours and framing. I think you have slightly over-clipped the black point - to reduce noise or to eliminate a gradient? A bit of noise is OK.

Excellent mate. Well done, a great job. Here.. https://skastro.net/m87-the-giant-elliptical-galaxy-in-virgo-tec-140/ ..is mine from last year. I want to add more to this. You are correct, you have indeed indeed captured some of the supermassive Globular Clusters that surround M87. M87's GC's dwarf in size and number those of our own galaxy, such is the number of galaxies that have merged to form M87 and the GC's are the long lost ghosts of those galaxies that owned those GC's. It is not known why they should also be so much larger than our own, although that could just be a numbers thing.... If you have 15000 of something then chances are you'll have something much bigger than if you only have 250 like we do. Such is the size of the largest of the GC's they can be seen across 60 million light years of space.

Lovely. A labour of love there to perfect it.

Nice. That is almost certainly not the relativistic jet though, there are two small galaxies that are often confused with the jet; the jet is extremely faint visually although not too bad for picking up in an image. You have almost no chance of viewing it visually unless with a very large instrument in very dark skies with super seeing. Your 400P could possibly do it in said dark skies and A1 seeing. The post on my website may help: https://skastro.net/m87-the-giant-elliptical-galaxy-in-virgo-tec-140/

Some lunar imaging I did 25th March 2021. Moon was high to the South in Leo with a phase of 86% waxing gibbous. Slightly hazy sky made for quite good seeing although it was very windy and the moon was jiggling a lot in the gusts. I had to time my capture runs between these gusts which was not always successful. As a consequence I accumulated nearly 600G of data for these four pictures in total, much of it junk. I hope you like them. All captures done in Firecapture. I used DeepSkyStacker for processing the .ser files and then Photoshop and PixInsight. First up, the disk image below is with my TEC140 (flattener removed) and ASI174M. This is a two pane mosaic using RGB (Baader CCD RGB filters) for colour and a Baader Ha7mm filter for the luminance. Joining together of the two panes using the Photoshop merge tool. Best 50% of 6000 in each of the RGB and top 50% of 10000 in the Ha. For my next run on this I am going to try for 20000 frames in the RGB to try and get more colour since I struggled to get more out of the bluer cobalt rich regions. I am very happy with this image other than I wish it had that bit more colour. I think my technique of the Ha channel for the luminance is highly effective. I deconvolve this in PixInsight and then used a bit of HDR multiscale transformation and a bit of Unsharpmask to get a wonderful crisp luminance without overdoing it as I often see with some lunar images. The RBG is simply aligned RGB channels with the alignment done with the Star Alignment tool in PixInsight which is easier than photoshop in my opinion. I then moved over to my C925. I am getting more and more into this scope and I enjoy it hugely. Collimation is 99% percent there and I am perfecting a new technique that I will eventually share. This time ASI174M with only RGB filters and no dedicated luminance and I created a synthetic luminance. It was very windy for using F10 (telescope at its native focal length and no barlow) and this time only the top 20% of 8000 frames in each R,G and B master.

Very nicely done.

Congratulations. Good luck with it. Superb telescopes, I love my FSQ85, good as an imaging scope and a superb scope to use eyepieces with as well, never forget. Some cracking views of the moon with my FSQ.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I've gotten into lunar observing and imaging very much recently since, as DaveS mentioned, pretty much every time it is clear the moon is out. Still love DSO as well of course but we have to make do and mend.

The simple answer is that SCTs are the best scopes for the planets and the moon. There is a reason why the megagods of planet imaging like Damian Peach and others use them. Their long FL and large objectvies per £ make them ideal for planets.

Never use the diagonal when doing AP at prime focus. Always use an extender. With my TEC 140 I have the focuser racked out almost fully AND I have a 2" extender. Almost 100% certainly, your problem is due to you not reaching the correct back focus.

..... I have a text document where I record all my starting point focus points, imaging train components, and starting gain/exposure for every combination of scope, camera, ADC, Barlow etc so that I can assemble, dial in and go. I keep this up to date.

Have you got enough gain and exposure such that even had you achieved focus you'd actually be able to see something on the screen? Conversely, have you got too high an exposure so that it washes everything out? It is quite normal to require an extension to make up for the removal of the diagonal and the back focus distance that it made up. Regarding focus itself a chimney/eaves of a house/trees etc 50-100 metres away to practise in the daytime will be very close to precise focus at night so you are correct trying this method first. I do this all the time to save precious clear sky time.

He puts up some great work does JP and is a very nice guy and is very approachable. His skills with Photoshop are rather incredible...! He images from middle of a city so only does narrowband and often bins data 4x4 !

No I haven't seen that before personally. Looks like reflections occurring inside the optical tube. Have you ever imaged with this scope before?

Yes it worked very well. Well done.

Excellent pictures. well done. Were you using a barlow or was this at native?

I hope you get it working, it can be so frustrating at times. Personally, I feel Hyperstar is a way for Celestron to tick the box to say "DSO imaging capable". Sounds cynical but that's my view personally. Hats off to people who like it, can get focus at F2 and maintain it and get good results. If you have clear nights every night and have multiple nights to play around collimating two optical systems and can perfect it then great. But in the UK we do not and we need simpler AP solutions to make the most of precious few opportunities. None of that helps you of course and I do hope you get to the bottom of your issues.

I think people tend to impose their workflow and ways of doing things learned on other software onto NINA and then expect it to work the same. I agree it is quite hard to readjust. For example, I like the way SGP put the autofocus frame in the main window - you immediately see if the focus has gone wrong by looking at the stars. NINA does not do that (not that I know and happy to be corrected). There are many other differences too.

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