Stargazer33

Short .gif from a .ser video, captured last night (12th) with my ASI385MC and the supplied all-sky-lens.

We had a lovely clear night last night. The best we've had in ages. The battery died on my old laptop - probably due to the sub zero temperature - so only managed a few 5 minute videos. I saw lots more before I decided to set up the camera. 

Tonight; peak; is completely clouded out! Surprise, surprise!!

I also had my Mother-in-laws dog as a stargazing companion/hot water bottle.  Excuse the finger in the shot, my wife is a bit of a technophobe! 

For the data cables use Cat 6 LAN cables not USB. The kind of cables that connect computers in an office etc. 

Nice catch!

Looks like The Sun is really getting going in this cycle! Lovely sharp images. 

You've got an obsy, so it wouldn't take very long to get going. 🤪

I'd end up using that hour just carrying my kit outside and connecting everything up! 🙁

Very ethereal. 

Hi, you can use either. The Sun is so bright even with a solar filter blocking 99.99% of the light, you can take very short exposures. Focusing is the real issue. If there aren't any Sun spots to focus on, then focus on part of the limb.

HTH

CO here is next to useless I'm afraid. I usually look on the Met Office site, at the recent observations. Either 'Satellite' or 'IR Satellite' and run the sequence through at x2 speed and see if any clouds or clear skies are heading my way. Not always successful, but it's more accurate than CO. We do have a very strange micro-climate around here though. Nobody really gets it right unless we are in a prolonged spell of weather!

Very nice image! We've had horrible weather here recently. 😕

Good start. I hope to start building one next spring/summer. Our old 8x10 foot shed needs replacing. When we do that next year I'm going to modify the old one, reducing it in size to use the wood for repairs. I'm hoping to incorporate a warm room, but it depends on how much of the shed needs repairing/replacing.

Good luck with your build. Look forward to following your progress - diy observatory porn!

Nice image. Processing looks good; I don't think you've over cooked it at all.

Nice surface detail Steve; especially under such testing circumstances. Nice control of the ringing that so many images seem to be suffering from in recent posts.

For anyone still interested in getting Dave's AAF2 to work in N.I.N.A. and possibly FireCapture too read on...

I was just playing around with N.I.N.A. and managed to get AAF2 v2.5 to work by selecting 'POTH Hub' from the focuser chooser in N.I.N.A. and then selecting 'AAF2 Focuser' in the subsequent ASCOM chooser.

Everything seems to work and you get to use the excellent auto focus feature in N.I.N.A. 

HTH

Bit of a zombie thread this one, but I've only just recently rediscovered it.

I've modified my original diy manually controlled focuser to #tekkydaves AAF2.

The focuser works great in Dave's test program and in APT; but it isn't recognised in N.I.N.A or FireCapture as they are 64 bit programs and the driver for AAF2 is 32 bit.

Having watched numerous YT videos about N.I.N.A.s autofocus feature, I would to give it a try. I would also like to use the focuser for when I do planetary imaging in FireCapture.

So, has anyone written a 64 bit driver for this focuser or know of someone who has and could point me to the download? If not I might try having a go at writing one myself; although I've never done any programming before! 

Hi and welcome to SGL!

The one that you have is called a refractor and uses only lenses to form the image. The other one is called a Newtonian and uses mirrors to form the image. A quick Google of these terms will provide you with lots of information. 

What processing software are you using? 

This is from the NASA site:

Notes Regarding the Display of FITS Images
An application intended to render a FITS image for viewing by a user has significantly more responsibility than an application intended to handle other standard image formats (e.g., "jpg" or "gif" images). FITS data arrays contain elements which typically represent the values of a physical quantity at some coordinate location. Consequently they need not contain any pixel rendering information in the form of transfer functions, and there is no mechanism for color look-up tables. An application should provide this functionality, either statically using a more or less sophisticated algorithm, or interactively allowing a user various degrees of choice. (See also, a short introduction to astronomical image processing).

Furthermore, the elements in a FITS data array may be integers or floating point numbers. The dynamic range of the data array values may exceed that of the display medium and the eye, and their distribution may be highly nonuniform. Logarithmic, square-root, and quadratic transfer functions along with histogram equalization techniques have proved helpful for rendering FITS data arrays. Some elements of the array may have values which indicate that their data are undefined or invalid; these should be rendered distinctly.

The data array in a FITS image must have a dimensionality between 1 and 999, the boundaries inclusive, indicated by the NAXIS keyword. The extent of any coordinate axis in a FITS data array may, however, consist of only a single element. Hence an algorithm designed to render two-dimensional images will be capable of displaying a three- or four-dimensional FITS array when one or two of the axes consist of a single pixel.

Three-dimensional data arrays (NAXIS=3 with multiple elements along each) are of special interest. Inspection of the World Coordinate System (WCS) keywords in an image with NAXIS = 3 or more may indicate that one of the axes is temporal. Writers of viewer applications should consider presenting such an image in a fashion akin to that used for an animated GIF. Even in the absence of WCS indication of a temporal axis this time-lapse display technique can be effective, and application writers should consider offering it for all three-dimensional arrays.

A FITS image with NAXIS=1 is a one-dimensional entity such as a spectrum or a time series. Writers of applications intended to handle these one-dimensional FITS images should consider presenting such an image as a graphical plot rather than as a two-dimensional picture with a single row.

Nice tip. A good one for new people to learn the Moon's features. 

Very nice Rob. Love the colours and the depth in the pic is superb.

Really nice.  Lovely detail. 

Great detail Paul! That really 'pops'; has a real 3D look.

Some nice detail there Rob. I have the ASI385MC too; it's a good camera, as you've demonstrated here.

Great animation and nicely processed too.

If it's under warranty, I wouldn't start opening it up. I know it's a pain, but wait and see what FLO says.

Looks like you had some good nights there,  very nice. 

Nice write-up. I use APT myself and have recently added ASTAP to it's plate solving and agree it is very quick!

I did look at N.I.N.A. when I upgraded to a new capture laptop with Win 10 Pro 64 bit on it, but didn't like the layout/setup. Perhaps I should give it another go as I didn't really give it a chance.