kirkster501

Always a great first target is M31. Look for the sateliite galaxies as well, easily visible in a small scope.

...so many stars! The Summer Triangle area is spectacular and I counted countless dozens of stars within it. Been cloudy whilst camping just a mile or so from Land’s End but last night it cleared and with the bins it was most enjoyable. Us who are familiar with suburban skies miss out greatly and I most definitely want to move to a dark sky when I move house next.

Indeed, I have bought a few things from him and I can't fault him.

Yes and Bern is a good guy too.

Wonder why the guys at FLO don't do QHY???? (read as "please FLO, start to do QHY.... )

I think holding fire for a few months on any major camera purchases is a wise idea at the moment, there seems to be a lot of new stuff in the pipeline. Brand new that is..... A good deal on something used is not to be dismissed. Just another thought - do you think it's the end of the road for any new CCD technology now? I see very little innovation in that area coming down the track but not sure if I missed anything.

To complete this story, Olly shared with me his superb luminance of M101. I am mightily happy that my scope is fine and his linear luminance stars are similar to mine. The bloated large stars in my stretched images are a result of my stretching too aggressively without masks I think - something I need to investigate and skill up on.

Samyang 135mm is a brilliant lens. Mine is not so good at F2 and I have to stop it down a bit.

With great difficulty. The summer sky between Hercules and Altair and the summer southern sky around Scorpio and Sagittarius, Scutum and all that area is still a bit of a mystery to me because it is unobservable almost when I have to be up for work and it's dark so late from UK in May/June/July. Indeed, the best I have seen it is from Lanzarote when on holiday where it is higher in the sky and it gets dark much earlier there. I always ask for a high balcony facing the sea with unobstructed views. Can spend hours with the bins, it is a glorious area and a great pity I feel that I and many others currently miss out on it. 53 nearly and want to retire at 58 - as long as my pension has not bombed as a result of COVID.

Great image Bryan, well done. I love imaging with my Samyang 135 too. I'd go as far as to say I like this as much as using scopes.

I think it is a consumerist "want, want, want" mindset we have in the West (and increasingly worldwide). We are never happy and always want something new. This is especially evident in children nowadays but we are all guilty of it to some extent. I'm reminded of a phrase in the movie "Fightclub" where Brad Pitt's character says "The things that you own end up owning you". Of course there are some things that you do actually really need. But with hand on heart could you still enjoy astronomy without that new thing you have your eye on??? Oftentimes I'd suggest the answer is yes, you could. So to address your question, beyond the immediate buzz of the new thing (whatever it may be, astronomy or otherwise), no it does not make you happy. It makes you unhappy and uncontented, feeding the monster within that needs its next fix.

Thanks Olly, will ping you.

Hi all, Been reading this article and its referenced links with interest. I also seems to get bloated stars with the TEC140[with FF]/Atik460/Astrodon LRGB combination. The stars become uncontrollable when moving into the nonlinear state. I never get this with the FSQ85 and the Atik. https://www.lightvortexastronomy.com/blog/bloated-stars-in-luminance-and-blue-through-a-refractor What do you guys think? I have an IDAS P2 2" to try that, I hope, should cut the UV/IR from flooding my scope. Look at these images below and you will see what I mean. Sure, the galaxies are nice but the bright and bloated stars take the edge off of the images. M33 is with Baader filters so it is not the filters causing this. Possibly I am stretching too aggressively but I don't think so. Thanks, Steve

^^^This. Absolutely. And I struggle with this with the TEC140 and will start a new thread on it.

It is all a balancing act and there is no right or wrong. You can have the best, dark and aeroplane free skies in the world that would bare one hour exposures, but if your tracking and guiding is out, that is an awful lot of exposure and investment to throw away. So we bring the exposure down to lessen our investment any individual subs. That sweet spot depends on your gear and also your location. Most people in suburban skies agree that 5-10 mins for broadband and 15 mins for narrowband is about the area to be gunning for with a CCD. If you live somewhere with very dark skies, possibly more. Less with CMOS. And it also depends on your mount's tracking accuracy.

Thanks. I also try to not overly clip the background sky too and make it too black like some folks do. The FSQ85 is a mighty fine telescope.

That is exactly my rationale too. We are not festooned with clear nights in this country to allow us the luxury of dozens of hours of data on an object and have to try and make do with less.

Ok, gotcha. TBH I don't think it matters as long as you have enough of a data pool. I have generally converged on 10 mins L/Ha and 5 mins for RGB after much experimentation. Sometimes I'll do 5 min luminance lights to get something in the can if it looks like clouds later on that evening.

I don't agree with that rule you've read about RGB x 2 wrt Luminance. The luminance is the absolute king of astrophotography. I have seen APOD images where the luminance was eight times the combined RGB total and was brilliantly colourful and vibrant. 20 hours of luminance and one hour each in RGB is very acceptable if the data is good quality. Now with that said, I have been experimenting and find that if I bin the RGB 1x1 (or even one of the colours 1x1) then the need for the separate luminance is less crucial. You still need the /total/ integration time though. I live under a flight path into East Midlands airport and so it hurts to throw away 20 minute subs. I have done this length before, but I find little difference between that and ten minutes in my skies. Sure, if I lived away from the airport and had glorious and abundant dark skies, then yes, 30 min subs would be worth it. I'd have the scope going overnight most nights and have a huge data lake of data for dozens of objects. However, reality check is that I live in Nottingham not Nevada. P.S. I love your comet photo. Very nice.

I increasingly bin everything 1x1 nowadays.

I always do luminance/Ha at ten minutes and RGB at five. With my skies I get zero benefit in going longer than that.

It was with my FSQ85 with Atik460 LRGBHa Baader filters. About three hours luminance, two hours in Ha and an hour each in RGB. There are a few tweaks I need to make to this image to make it pop a bit more.

.... and I often stay at a house on the fjord just down from you at Grosse Bakkerby. My brother is married to a Danish girl 😀

Great lens init? Love mine. I like your M27 in wide field, it works well.

Thankyou @vlaiv for your time in explaining this. So, in practise in the real world, what would one do with a CMOS to calibrate lights and flats in terms of what calibration frames are required ?