Bobby1970

M81 & M82

Altair 72mm Semi Apo Scope, AZGTi mount, ZWO 178MC camera.

Livestacked in sharpcap 15mins total integration.

Forgot about this thread being dedicated to non EQ imaging.

Thanks for looking 🙂

Thought I would have a crack at Venus with my Dob (no tracking), I believe this is referred to as "lucky imaging" ?

2x barlow on the 178MC. I allowed the planet to drift through the field of view and captured 200-300 frames using ASI Cap.  I repeated this until I had around 3000 frames made up across many individual AVI files.

I joined the AVI's together then used PIPP (best 2000 frames), AS, Registax and Paint.net to produce the final image.

I was quite surprised at how it came out, and was a fun thing to do.

Thanks for looking 🙂

i have just downloaded and installed this onto my astro laptop. Will have a play next time i get chance. The interface certainly looks very simplistic and less cluttered than something like Sharpcap, not sure if this will affect just how good or bad it is in comparison, but im up for having a play with it.

11 hours ago, NenoVento said:

Thats great. I also use an altaz mount and am always concern about taking more than 2 or 3 minute movies of Venus due to field rotation. I hope the weather improves soon so I can try with sharpcap (focus and ROI) as you did (but with my IMX224 colour camera).

Thanks for the info,

NV

I don't think its field rotation as such you need to worry about with planetary imaging. Its the rotation of the planet itself as far as I know. I always thought a couple of minutes was generally "optimal" for planetary work but I may be wrong, it was certainly the case when I got my first scope and modified web cam to have a dabble with.

With my camera I tweaked the settings and used the ROI at 800x600 along with using the RAW8 setting it enabled a framerate of around 90fps. So a couple of minutes captured lots of frames. My astro laptop only has usb 2 also so perhaps with a newer laptop I could have achieved an even higher fps, not sure. 

I intend to have a crack at venus with my 90mm mak just for comparison with the 127mm one, hopefully during the next week or so.

7 minutes ago, NenoVento said:

Amazing picture with "only" 127mm. These maks are incredible. Were you using the AZGTI in standard or with the eq mod?

NV

Tbh. I've only used it in alt az mode at the moment. Although I have flashed it with the eq firmware

54 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

That's why I ended up drilling a hole in a doorstop, quicker and easy to remove.

Dave

Well. I tried drilling a whole in one of those doorstops and I'm not sure what's in them, but jeez it's hard stuff. Lol

4 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Threads a lot smaller than the bar maybe 8mm.

Dave

So, maybe M10 threaded rod, with an adaptor down to m8? 

Can't recall what thread is on the star adventurer counterweight bar, but you could maybe purchase a longer piece of threaded rod of the same size. 

Or

Buy another counterweight  for a star adventurer? 

Thought I would have another crack at this.

127mm Mak, ZWO178MC on my AZGTi mount, 2x barlow. 

The seeing wasn't the best and the whole planet seemed to be shimmering and bubbling but I persisted anyway.

I had a bit of a play with the focussing assistance in Sharpcap to see if it helped.

I also used the ROI feature in sharpcap to get a higher framerate and managed 10000 frames in a couple of minutes. I used PIPP to get this down to around 4000 frames, then AS, Registax , Gimp and Windows photo editor.

Not in the same league as some of the spectacular Venus images in here, but something nonetheless.

Thanks for looking 🙂

I use an Altair 72mm ED scope for pretty much the same things as you by the sound of it. I also use it on my AzGti. But more for EEVA in AltAz mode than full on Astrophotography. I'm pretty chuffed with how it performs for Solar with my Herschel wedge, and also for EEVA with my ZWO 178 camera. 

Not had much chance to grab an image through the wedge yet, so despite nothing much activity I thought I would have a play.

A couple of minutes of video, processed in PIPP, AS registax and Paint.net

Thanks for looking

I really like that. Good effort. 

I bought the APM 1.25 wedge fairly recently. I have only used it twice so far on my 72mm scope. 

I would say the granulation was more noticeable than a solar film filter. Definitely more texture visible even with my small scope. 

Need to hook my ZWO 178 up to it to check how much better the images may well be. 

I love that, well captured.

5 minutes ago, Craney said:

Makes a great telephoto lens with a DSLR as well.   

I sold mine,  and sort of wish I hadn't, even though I've  got  (n+1)**2 other scopes as well.

TBH the scope is literally brand new. It was too good to miss at £50.

Will give it a go on my DSLR at some point

I did notice that I couldn't fit the entire moon on the sensor of my 178, even with a 0.5 focal reducer attached to it. lol

Not to worry, guess I will need to learn how to do a mosaic and stitch it together. I am sure that my 127 mak can fit the whole disk on the sensor of the 178 although I do realise that the focal lengths and f ratios of the two scopes are different I believe.

Captured this also:-

NGC2244, Satellite Cluster. 

Thanks again for looking 🙂

1 minute ago, tooth_dr said:

Gear image Bobby. A lot of potential with that new scope. 

I think there will be a few targets that may suit it with the 178. Globular clusters and things like the Dumbbell nebula, crab nebula maybe?

I bought myself a 90mm Skywatcher Mak recently. I have no need whatsoever for one, lol. But the seller only wanted £50 and it came with a bag, red dot finder, two eyepieces and diagonal. All still in their plastic bags and boxes, the red dot finder still had the plastic to pull out from the battery before use, and there were no marks at all on the dovetail even. 🙂

Anyway, I had a quick look at the moon last night and then thought why not try it with the ZWO 178MC and focal reducer just to see what I could capture and for a bit of fun.

This is the result of around 8 or 9 minutes of 15s images livestacked in sharpcap and processed in Startools.

Thanks for looking

Thoroughly enjoyed the whole season. 

Is it confirmed for a second one? 

Hope so. 

Rosette Nebula (?). Edited with Snapseed on my Pixel 2. 

Same evening.

Thanks for looking

only just realised I posted in the "observing" section

Can this be moved to the imaging area please mods?

10 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

I like that composition

Thanks. I had to crop a little bit from the edges due to stacking artifacts. But this is pretty much framed as I saw it on the laptop screen. 

I think there's another pass tonight. More directly over/in front of M45. 

I won't have an opportunity to capture it tonight tho. 😞

Managed to bag a few other targets too. Not processed yet. 

Was out with the ZWO 178MC last night, coupled up to an old 28mm lens, wide open at f2.8.

Managed to capture the ISS close to M45, livestacked a bunch of 2 second exposures and processed a bit in Startools. 

Thanks for looking.

9 minutes ago, MarkAR said:

A good effort, not seen star flares like the brighter ones before. 

I think they are created by the aperture blades in the lens. I stopped it down to f5.6 I think. Not sure if they would be minimised by stopping down further or not. 

Personally I've always liked them. As I do diffraction spies where people have used Reflectors for imaging.