Scott

Congrats John. Others may at some time in the future may reach 50000 posts but I can't imagine the content of their posts matching yours. Your willingness to help others is 2nd to none. Thanks.

33 minutes ago, johninderby said:

That came up in a conversation with OO a few years ago and I agreed not to reveal anything more than that. SGL would have had no way of knowing that they were an ex employee so SGL is not at fault.

I’m not going to say any more on the subject. 

If you are not prepared to provide evidence for your accusations then do you really think it's right to cast aspersion? 

7 hours ago, barkis said:

Apologies from me, I was unable to make it to this one, and  I was so looking forward to this topic. I hope to watch the replay though.

Ron.

when it's uploaded, there will also be data to work through with the replay

Well I'm damn impressed with that mount but tell me, what's your tv reception like
Thanks for sharing it with us. Do you have an engineering background?

On 27/05/2020 at 19:31, Jiggy 67 said:

 (you could argue that they are two separate hobbies)

No arguement from me

Thats pretty stunning Rodd.

10 minutes ago, Bobby1970 said:

only just realised I posted in the "observing" section

 

Can this be moved to the imaging area please mods?

 

done

12 hours ago, Science562h said:

How do you have an observatory & image, with an unmodified DSLR? You sure, it isn't your backyard? In the U.S, private observatory cameras are still $10-$30K & those 'scopes still use spectrometers. 2-4 hr continuous recordings, at minimum, for private amateur non-sponsored state observatories.  They wil still not be sponsored, by the state or nation. 

I'm guessing here are also private obs in the USA as well as commercial. Any building, shed, shack, shanty that houses a permanent setup Is an observatory 

6 minutes ago, Adam J said:

Nice images, do you have the aperture stopped down for these? The stars seem very tight. 

Adam 

Cheers Adam. Can't recall exactly the f/stop but it'd be around f/3.5. Of course shooting in ha helps and the fact that they're mosaics all contribute to the star size 🙂

Good to hear from you again Kev. 

On 20/07/2019 at 12:47, Mark at Beaufort said:

Paul thanks for starting this thread. The weather forecast for 3.56 BST seems reasonable. What I have done is to use the Moon Virtual Atlas set for 3.56 BST and used the image for a Newtonian - see attached. Red dot in the middle.

I sat up all night watching on a 12" KB TV - I had been married just 6 weeks. Pam (wife) joined me when Neil climbed down the ladder.

No such problem where I was. Sat on the floor in the hall at Loftus Primary School watching with all the primary students (the infants kids just weren't grown up enough ). I must have been enthralled because I usually only remembered how cold my bum was . I was 8.5 yrs old and although the gravity of the situation was lost on me, I remember it pretty well. 

5 hours ago, Gina said:

Very interesting   I'm imaging the Cygnus area in widefield.  This is too small to show in my images.

It's quite small when seen in the context of the constellation.

That's really come up a treat Steve. The amount of interesting targets in the Cygnus region is incredible. If only we could get more Dark hrs on this constellation...

2 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

Thats phenomenal for only 90 seconds total exposure.... 

Even more so when considering it's quite low down in the murky UK skies

What strikes me is that the very same arguements we hear against people using remote imaging (all types) are the ones used when someone has a £100k obsy in the backyard compared the those who often, through no fault of their own, use budget equipment that they must haul to a dark site 3-4 times a year. 
Astrophotgraphy is never going to be competed on a level playing field.  Just find the niche' that suits you and let others do the same. 

On 18/06/2019 at 11:51, Jkulin said:

OK playing devils advocate here and I know @carastro will chuckle, at what point does an image hosted, captured and processed by one self compete against one setup remotely hosted but captured and processed by another versus data purchased and downloaded then processed compare. So in theory three methods, the first two as I mentioned early require considerably skill and patience, the third well....?

Should someone who spends days, weeks months or years even trying to capture sufficient quality data to produce an image compete for the accolade of "image of the day" for some one who buys their data and then processes it and enters into the same competition.

Should there be different classifications?

No! Not when the rules of the competition allows it. That would be just silly. Not sure what the answer is, bar changing the rules just for those who don't like it?...

9 minutes ago, Rodd said:

(there has been A LOT of agains!).  

Rodd

I wouldn't let the opinion of a bunch of frustrated (By clouds ) astronomers sway you too much. No doubt you know this image far more intimately than any of us.

Yep, me too. I also think the Ha is being pushed to hard in the bottom one. Oddly, the same can be said for the dustlanes in the top one yet I find it very pleasing, at least to my eye. 
All being said, I'd be over the moon with either 🙌

depending on your southern outlook, you might want have a look around Sagittarius

Just now, Knight of Clear Skies said:

What camera did you use please?

Sorry, An Atik 460EX mono

Here's a few from a complete newcomer to camera lens imaging. Atik 460EX-135mm Samyang_Ha

On 27/05/2019 at 11:19, Adreneline said:

This is my first RGB image with the Samyang 135mm/ASI1600 combination albeit with some Ha and OIII added for good measure!

I'm amazed I got anything at all with the short night and clouds. In total this is 210s Red, 90s Green, 120s Blue, 720s Ha and 600s OIII all pre-processed in APP, processed and combined in PI PixelMath followed by a little colour tweaking in PS. The RGB were all 30s exposures, the NB was all 120s exposures. Even at 30s there was clear signal on the RGB

Spacing is really sensitive and as things stand I can only go as far as f4 and get reasonable FWHM values of less than 2.0.

Adrian

Love the camera set up. Can you please give some details of the focuser. Apart from that, and the filter wheel, it's similar to mine

I made a counterweight system for my astrotrac. Bought a 50mm lth of round stainless bar for around £6. Had it drilled and tapped as needed.Works a treat. 

15 minutes ago, JamesF said:

Reminiscent of van Gogh, I feel

James

I hear ya 😜

Did you try turning it off and on again?
That's about the extent of my IT expertise