Jarvo

Thanks for the comments Guys. Yeah all my other caps from televue are black with the company moniker embossed on the bottom. 
 

Looks like even TV are looking at cutting costs. 
 

Thanks for the nice comments all 😊

I resisted and resisted. I told myself I have enough scopes and don’t need this and then boom the order was accepted. 
As you can see I’ve gone and got me one of those C9.25 xlt thingamybobs from Celestron. 
It fits (very) snuggly into the observatory. 
Just need Mars to rise at a civil hour now 😊

Thanks for all the excellent responses Guys. Really appreciate you taking the time out to reply. 
In the end I got a great deal on a Laptop with an I7 with 512 Gb of SSD. 
I did a sample of an older Venus Ser file and it took literally minutes (posted in the planetary bit). 
Bring on Mars,,,

Good image. Definitely try with a Barlow. Can’t wait to see the results 😊

Best one I’ve seen yet Mate 😊

So excited to see this. Was waiting for the evening apparition. Didn’t realise it was visable from my bedroom window 😊

Ironically I wouldn’t be able to see it from the observatory. So this is from the bedroom window with the iPhone. 
 

What a fantastic addiction 😊

I love a good refractor. I’ve now got 3 - a travel scope , an ED guide scope and my beloved Esprit 100. Oh and my first scope was a 60mm Tasco!

Is it possible to say which is your favourite or is that like choosing a favourite child?

jarvo

This beautifully crafted item arrived in the post today. All part of the gearing up for Mars season. 
 

Apologies if it’s started to rain....

Hi All. Just trying out the new laptop with some older data. 

I think I'm off to Venus for my first post lockdown break - should be less hassle than the A64.

This is what I think it will look like on final approach. Factor 15 at the ready.

I used my beloved Esprit 100 with a 2.5 Powermate, a QHYIII290m camera and used Sharpcap software. 600 frames stacked in Registax and some very minor cosmetic tweaks performed in Gimp.

Thanks for looking

Steve

Bit of a techy question All. Just about to buy a new laptop. AMD Processor looks to be better for Gamers ie graphics processing.  Would this principal apply to processing the complex stacking techniques we use to process our beautiful images?

Any steer opinions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

Jarvo

Cheers Annehouw. Much appreciated. 
 

I’ll give it a go. 
 

steve

Hi all. I’m trying to figure out how or if I can try dithering with my current set up. 

The scope is perfectly suitable (Esprit 100) Got a good guide scope QHY one and even the old 10mp DSLR  does the trick but I am plagued by walking noise on my images. 

The mount is an EQ5 with go to and a standard ST4(?) autoguiding port. 

Just want to know whether with this mount and port I can dither or am I due a beefy upgrade. 

Any guidance (ha!) or tips would be warmly received.

Thanks all

Steve

Scratch that last question. Looks like I’m off on a journey of dithering discovery 🤢

Hi thanks for the steer. 

I'm using Gimp to process the image. 

Do you need to auto guide to perform dithering. If so that’s another thing I need to master. 

Thanks again

Hi All.  Just in the middle of processing a pinwheel and was hoping for some steer from the community.

Much as I try to tweak the levels of my images over several iterations the data gradually gets worse whilst the false colour increases.

Don't worry about vignetting I'm getting a field flattener soon. Its more what is the best way forward to remove the noise and false colour.

Happy for all advice no matter how constructive.

Thanks in advance

Steve

Hi All

I was aiming to image the Needle Galaxy last night but Moonlight made it too difficult for me to jump to it (not many bright stars in that are at the best of times).

So I thought I'd have a stab at M104 - my favourite Galaxy (I've got a poster of it in the Observatory).

Its relatively easy to find with its own little set of pointers to the final site.

Got just under an hour of data but I've learned to be a bit picky with the raw data so ended up only choosing 38 x 1 minutes of data plus 3 darks.

Kit was my trusty Esprit 100 and my tired old Olympus E420 (I've just realised it's 14 years old !!).

Its a bit grainy but I can see its dust lane which I am pleased with.

Thanks for looking and stay safe.

Steve

I am genuinely speechless at this. If took a picture of Mars now it would not be as clear. 
 

Amazing work. 
 

Brilliant. Thanks for all the responses Guys you are the best. 
 

Hi there. Looking for some feedback. 

Has anybody used the Nagler 3.5 With the Esprit100?

I want to buy the eyepiece but it’s at the limit of useable magnification. 

Any thoughts or comments gladly received 😊

Cheers and stay safe. 

Steve

Thanks again Red Dwarf. You inspired me to take a look at how to reduce noise in GIMP. So I did several iterations of Despeckling and High pass sharpen and I've added the result.

Think its a lot better. Thanks again !

Walking noise  - that's a new one thanks. For info its an unguided shot

Hi All - wondering is I can reach out for some help.

So I took this image the other night which I'm pretty pleased with but there are some artefacts across the image which I'm struggling to process out.

I've used GIMP to do several iterations of Levels adjustment, cropped out the vignetting and sharpened it but he artefacts remain.

Is it light pollution, can it be processed out?

More than happy for anyone to take a shot but would be grateful for any technical secrets you may have.

**Uploaded a  .png file so you can see it   (Thanks for the steer Bryan

Thanks in advance

Steve

Hi All

After a few false starts this week the air was still enough last night so I went for it.

And everything went near perfect - I found the target straight away, I got the focusing pretty much bob on, the tracking was the best I've ever experienced, I was disciplined and discarded any with egg shaped stars (only a few mind).

I managed to get 62 minutes of data (62 x 60") at ISO 800 plus 3 darks using the trusty old Olympus E420 coupled to my beloved Esprit 100. No filters.

Skies were clear (obviously!) but the Light Pollution in Morley is horrendous. My areas classed as an Bortle 8 but with the street lamp shining in my garden I put is at a 9.

I cannot explain just how pleased I am with this shot - It's probably the best one I've take. Yes I know they're not going to replace Hubble with me and my Esprit but so what? (Although I'm sure there are some people who would like to strap me to a rocket and send me up ! )

Did a bit of experimentation with the difference processing options in Deep Sky Stacker and this was the result.

Thanks for looking.

Steve

It was so nice yesterday I had to go out in the evening. 

Spring time galaxy hunting has always been a bit of a damp squib where I live in Leeds. The light pollution and modest equipment has always rendered the evenings a bit muted. 

But without the planets about I decided to have another go. 

With expectations lowered I set off and headed towards Leo. What I did find surprising was how easily I managed to find objects. Previously trying to find faint galaxies with an F/15 Mak was pretty fruitless but with the Esprit 100 at F/5.5 the faint smudges were much easier to find. 
 

M65 and M66 were there. That’s pretty much it. No structure visible but thats a combination of modest kit and light pollution but also the observers experience of picking out detail which comes with practice.
 

Stayed for a while using a variety of magnifications but increased magnification did not make much difference. 
 

At this point it sounds like I should have been disappointed but far from it. 
 

Moving on I noticed that Virgo was up and confidently decided to look for a personal favourite M104 (The Sombrero Galaxy). 
 

Took a couple of goes but that was my fault. The galaxy has 3 small stars in a line in the same field of view which helps. 
 

Again I couldn’t discern any detail,  just a very faint glow against the light polluted backdrop. I was hoping to get a glimpse of the dust band but had to settle for the satisfaction of finding a favourite from the books plus I know where to look if I want to attempt to take an image. 
 

Finally I skipped over to M51. Easily located.  The centers of both galaxies visible but no spiral structure.

By this time it was getting late so decided to pack up.

This write up read like I was perhaps disappointed with the evening but in reality I wasn’t. I was happy to be out in the fresh air, I tracked and found the objects with relative ease and I managed to find one of my favourites in M104 (although I could have looked over my shoulder at the poster of it I have in the observatory for a better view!).

This afternoon thanks to this site I found a very handy application called Clear Outside it turns out my back garden is Bortle 8  (out of 9) and that doesn’t include the street light to the South.

So I take solace from the fact I can still find some faint galaxies from my back yard against the backdrop of heavily light polluted skies and I regards myself as a novice galaxy hunter. 
 

Thanks for looking.

Steve