Ant

Very nice, an impressive achievement for sure.

My 7 year old is obsessed with kuiper belt objects - he will love seeing this image.

Love it!

Ant

But didn't get any

Took the family out and we watched Skylink go over... endlessly...  what a travesty to the night sky! 

Prior to last night, there was no dew at all. So last night took a risk of removing the dew shield, this enabled me to open the camera right up and increase the FOV by about 50-60%. Set the camera up 2 minutes, ISO 400... and off it went. 

Well, the dew rolled in at 00:30, damn it lol there was so much more moisture around last night, which clearly shows in the gradient in the image.

Got one frame with a meteor (lot Lyrid) and a satellite, and another startrail shot! There is always tonight. 

Hope others had more luck! 

Ant

Set the camera up last night for widefield shots. I had the plan of producing a star trail image, but wondered if maybe I might capture a meteor or two. 

This image was made up of around 75 x 5 minutes exposures, each with 5 seconds between. Canon 450D ISO 100, 27mm lense.  Produced into the final image in Star Trails DE, and then some slight tweaks in PS CS5.

No meteors

Saw Starlink go over last night... first time I've seen it... strangest thing i've seen for a while! 

Ant

17 hours ago, barkis said:

Pleased to see you back in the imaging saddle Ant.
Great looking result from 22 subs. Splendid detail too.
Who gives the Moon those weird names?

Do you intend to build your imaging rig up again?
You ought to, you turned out some good DSO's before you sold up.
Ron.

No, I think that's highly unlikely. I made a mistake selling up in the first place. Buying all the new shiny kit a while back didn't do me much good. I don't cope well with new kit, I appear to lack the ability to get used to new kit quickly and lack the patience to try...

13 hours ago, jgs001 said:

Worked nicely Ant. Good stuff.

Yeah, it did. The stacking enabled me to overcome the soft focus. So really pleased with that. I still need to pick your brains on the RAWs going into AS!3, I couldn't see how. So this is a stack of the JPGs.

4 hours ago, nightfisher said:

Thought you had dropped of the world, good to see you about, and nice image

Thanks, from an astro point of view, I pretty much have/had. I'm trying to rekindle the flame. But already struggling with the solar side, the fact that there is next to nothing going on on the sun doesn't help.

The seeing is never good enough these days for planets, lunar is OK (for me) as an occasional  thing. But the heart still yearns for the DSO imaging. But alas, the kit is too expensive, the learning curve too high, time is too short. With work, family and the weather, when the hell do you get a chance to capture the photons.

Ant

I had the sudden urge to image the moon a few days ago, I think it was all the talk of the "Pink Super Moon" rubbish that I was reading lol.

But full moon was the 8th, this image was taken around 23:30 on the 8th, but it would have been closer the evening before! 

Anyhow, these days I only have an undriven EQ3, ED80 and 450D. So i spent a lovely hour or two trying to reach focus, suddenly remember just how bloody hard this hobby is sometimes, when it really should be lol

Cannot get far enough out focus without the diagonal, cannot get far enough in focus with the diagonal Grrrrrr....!!!! 

But I had a really nice time, the sky was clear. The moon was lovely, the evening was warm and peaceful. Took 22 images with the dSLR, then packed up. Had to be up for work the next so didn't do anymore! 

Thanks to some advice here, stacked the JPGs in ASI3, wavelets in R6 and a little levels in PS CS5.

Quite pleased with the result. The individuals are slightly out of focus, and over exposed. So things to work on next time! 

Thanks for looking

Ant 

Nice thanks John, not so concerned about EXIF data right now - but will keep that one handy for when I am. 

Here is a quick process of one jpg. The focus is off, hoping that stacking will able to process through some of that, its also over exposed lol

Ant

Thanks for the replies guys, a few techniques to try, some new software to get. 

All I need now is an excuse not to leave the house to give me time to play.... Oh wait.... lol

Nice one, thanks all.

Ant

It is an absolutely brilliant podcast, series one was amazing.

Series two looking to be really good too.

Well recommended 

Ant

I used to know what I was doing lol , no not so much.

So last night I did some lunar imaging, full disc with a DSLR. Captured in RAW mode (CR2 files) with JPG versions automatically saved. 

If I had captured an AVI, I'd know what i was doing, throw the file into Registax or AS!...  But I honestly cannot remember what to do.

I have 22 images, do I open the RAWs in Registax and get it to do the alignment. Do I need to do some rough alignment myself in PS? It as using an un-driven mount, so there will be a fair amount of movement between first and last. 

Ta,

Ant

Thanks Ron,

14 hours ago, Highburymark said:

Good to see some feedback on how the Solar Scout performs. Its rock bottom price raised a few eyebrows on release but very few reports have surfaced since.  Based on a Quark but using a smaller etalon, as far as I understand it, it seems to be a better imaging scope than visual. Looks like you’ve picked up some nice detail.

I was only mildly concerned that visually I could see no detail whatsoever. Once I threw in the camera, I still couldn't see any surface features - even with the PST I usually could. But there is squat all activity right now - so maybe that's it.

I'll be trying again when the mood takes me (Shhh don't tell anyone, but I imaged the moon last night too). 

At  

Thanks Guys, Its reassuring to know that I at least managed some surface detail. 

I was a little worried that I should have seen some surface detail when viewing the feed live in IC Capture, i couldn't see anything. Using a scope for the first time and seeing nothing, does worry me a little.

At least next time, I can spend more time scanning the surface for potential detail than worrying about it being "on band" or not - solar minimum... awesome time to start solar imaging with new kit lol

Ant

I haven't done any astronomy for years really. 

I made a huge mistake in selling my kit a few years ago (including a PST), and then buying more, then not getting on with it so selling it. 

I've recently (in the last week or so) bought a DayStar Solar Scout SS60-DS 60mm. I've always been an imager rather than an observer so i only really have the real cheapo 10/25mm EPs that come with the SW scopes. I set the scope up and allowed time warm up / cool down / do its stuff. 

The disc size was pretty impressive compared to the PST, but I could see no detail on the disc, or any proms. To be honest I've never really been able to see much visually with Ha scopes, so that didn't bother me too much. 

Something else that I have to give credit to is the mount, what a clever piece of kit. Put it on the ground, press the on button and within about a minute it had gone off and placed the Sun in the Field of View of the scope. Seriously one of the easiest thing I've ever done! 

Any way I spent some time playing with the settings on the scope and managed to focus OK using an old 8bit DMK21, but never managed to see on the screen any surface detail or proms. This was the first time out with the scope so I'm not overly concerned as I never achieve much the first time out. 

My question is... on the image below (ignoring the two rather large dust bunnies towards the left) is the disc detail real? Or an artifact of the stacking/processing? And finally is that a little hedgerow prom on the right? I'm not so sure... 

Thanks

Ant

But that scene with the eye is a fairly important part of the back story. 

There has been some strong language, but it is extremely infrequent (maybe twice), and I thinks adds realism.

Gina, watch an episode or two before writing it off.

@Grant be really interested to hear you thoughts when you catch up.

I think its superb. 

For the record it's set in the Prime Timeline.

It's darker than the utopian future that ST:TNG portrayed, it's similar in concept to the TNG episode about the junior ranks of the enterprise. That showed the ST universe from a perspective away from the bridge crew.

It's also funnier and a lot sadder than I was expecting. The opening scene almost made me cry.

I hope that this series get a fair crack of the whip. But that said, I hope the writers are telling a predefined story, one where they already know the end. It cannot drag on - it needs to finish with us gagging for more.

Then ST: Section 31 can entertain us all

Thinking about it more, the whole 'Freecloud' environment reminds me of the 'Toehold Space' concept in the 'Golden Age of the Solar Clipper' Universe by Nathan Lowell. What do you reckon @Grant?

Ant

That's lovely. Nice and crisp, along with differing shades. Brill.

Ant

First time imaging anything for years! 

The mount and scope are buried somewhere in the garage! So had to use a trusty old 450D and camera tripod!

After some time trying to remember how to do pretty much everything, managed to get some images using a zoom lens that I had. I knew that the image scale and quality would be lacking, but it was this or nothing. 

Considering it took me about an hour to work out how to get the images off the  camera, find a laptop with photoshop, and then fumbling about processing the Raw's- at which lets be honest, I've never really been much good at!

Quite happy with this. Got some others at around 10 minute intervals up to 19:10 - at which point I had to go out! 

Thanks for looking

On 10/05/2019 at 21:18, Marvin Jenkins said:

One question? Why does the judging process take so long? I accidentally got my wife involved in the whole caper (getting out of bed at 3am and standing in the garden) she wants to know when the mug is getting here.....

 

Hi Marvin,

Mainly because real life gets in the way. Every Mod has the opportunity to vote.  It's unreasonable to say "you have to vote on the 1st" because thats not how we work. So we generally give everyone a week to vote. Then we tally the votes, work out the winner - then we organise the prize and create the banners etc. 

It just takes time and if real lives and jobs etc get in the way, they come first. Which is as it should be.

Ant

Maybe we limit the smilies that are displayed? If you know the shortcut you can still type it, we just limit the drop down contents ? 

Yep, really quick for me today! 

Thanks for all your efforts Grant

Well done all

Some amazing images, animations and sketches! 

Ant

38 minutes ago, R26 oldtimer said:

I don't think so. My wife was very excited as she witnessed the stretching of the picture where the nebulocity "magically" appeared out of nowhere.

I'm sure she's going to be just as excited when a Heq5 will appear out of nowhere too!

What? Won't she??

Damn youhaveit bad lol

Do not under any circumstances let her work out the price per image that you get from your kit. Thats when the trouble starts

ant

Ha ha ha  you are in trouble

Thank you to everyone who's entered this months challenge. This competition is now closed and voting will commence

Thanks

Ant

Thanks everyone fkr taking the time to enter challenge #10 !

This challenge is now closed and judging will start. Hopefully the half term break won't delay voring too much!

Thanks again.

Ant