LDW1

A small part of Masrkarian's Chain from several nites ago !

15 hours ago, AstroKeith said:

The Baader solar film is definitely better than the supplied filter ...

There has never been any doubt !  The Thousand Oaks mylar film with its phony orange tinge is the worst ever, SS must have gotten a great deal to use it in their solar filters.

I stayed up til 3:30 am to get this, I couldn't wait for July-Sept to get here, lol. I just did a touch up with my built in ipad editor.

M12 !   Ophiuchus holds several (5) nice star clusters.

1 hour ago, LaurenceT said:

A friend has kindly made me a 3d printed solar filter for the Seestar with a Baader film. I've applied a little AI sharpening and denoise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great take !  With the Baader film on a day when air currents are as still as you can get, especially around 10 am and winds are very lite the edges of the sunspots should be razor sharp not lot like the SS stock solar filter that uses the Thousand Oak mylar film with the phoney orange tinge.   I hope someone starts turning them out, I will buy one in a heart beat no matter what the cost !

12 hours ago, StevieDvd said:

Starting to try using the Seestar in EQ mode,  had issues first time getting it aligned but managed to hit a rough PA before calling it a night.

I did a goto to M13 to check it was aligned and managed a 10 minutes of 10 sec exposures, with a quick process in Pixinsight as below.

It even caught NGC6207 in top right of image. Once I get the hang of setup and PA it properly I can try longer exposures and more of them.

 

A great take !

44 minutes ago, LDW1 said:

Another recent take !

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I used the SS's built in stacker for these, I like it and I like to support SS when I can !

Another recent take !

/

On 29/04/2024 at 19:54, CCD-Freak said:

I just don't like the field rotation of an Alt-Az mount so if ZWO would update the firmware / software to support operation in equatorial mode and offer an EQ wedge option I would probably buy one to play with while my regular imaging setup is running. 

 

I would get one anyway, you don't realize the fun you are missing at such a low cost !  You might become addicted like the rest of us, lol !

10 minutes ago, nicoscy said:

Agree 100% - but it's something that one can use temporarily. I do believe ZWO will address this at some point. While I am lazy to do the existing "PA" routine or PA in general with EQ mounts, it's actually not a challenge, so ZWO can't exactly claim that this is an advanced feature

Decades ago I had an EQ mount or two, I didn't like the contortionist actions / attitudes that I had to do, I vowed never again, lol. I am sure the automated SS would have its problems as well, some how and for very little gain, in the end !

2 hours ago, nicoscy said:

Hi Jon,

Apparently you can mount the Seestar on a regular wedge and trick it to "polar align". Many are doing this, but I prefer the simplicity of Alt Az.

They are but it limits your field of view below a certain horizotal position, considerably, it might restrict access to many objects in say Scorpius and Sagittarius, maybe !

2 hours ago, andre2 said:

Okey.....differences seems very normal in solar telescope due to complexity and small deviations in the production.  I thought once that it had to do how bright the scope is or how ALL filters in the system works together. Yea...seeing can effect every telescope in their own ways

With my WL filters / scopes many times I either use a Variable Polarizing filter or a #56-58 green filter, they can really enhance the views.  I tried the variable filter one time in my ha scope but it made the view way too dark.

1 hour ago, andre2 said:

Sometimes I have the feeling that (generally)  some 40 and 50 Lunt's show better prominences then some Lunt 60 , while the SD is generally better in the 60. (It's like that there are some advances and disadvantages beteen all units or bunch to bunch)  And then... better seeings helps too "solve" this, but less common. I am happy with my Lunt, am using up to 60x with zoom. But it's quite clear that the surface detail makes a better impression generally. 

There has always been some slight discrepencies in the etalon, they are not easy to build and get a consistant lens / filter, thats why they are so costly.  The 3 ha scopes that I have owned have all been great performers. And as always air currents, heat rising always affects view quality, hour to hour, sometimes a lot.

The Deep Sky Stack feature built into the SS is a great little utility, its enjoyable just to play around with, this is one from last nite that I stacked with it today. I am not sure if I can do a before / after, I will give it a look but I have a couple of things to do first.

5 hours ago, glafnazur said:

I love your star images 👍 Not many people image individual stars, please keep them coming.

 

And there are a lot of them.

A few more for my Stars Album

On 19/04/2024 at 06:21, Neil H said:

Hi I want to ask a question but don't know we're to ask it so I hope you don't mind me asking here , when I use my seestar most of the time I get messages like "stack failed star trails so binned" or not enough stars , any ideas why I get these ?

Kind regards Neil

I get those messages when skies are a bit hazy or there is a bit of a breeze blowing from certain directions.  But unless your skys are constantly like that you shouldn't get those messages ' most of the time ' !  You do get some good times though, right ?

A couple more from a not too bad sky !

2 minutes ago, cimh said:

This is the advantage of the EQ mount. This is an uncropped stacked & processed image taken last night over 1.5hrs. (M51 was at 52 degrees at the start, 82 by the end).

 

 

I don't see much difference unless I stare for a while or maybe use a magnifying glass vs the hassles of using an EQ set up ! ZWO got it right and I think at a much better price, no wonder 98% of us have smiles on our faces, lol !

The 2" filter holder that I ordered from Oak Astro just arrived !  It works well, fits a little snug so I will sand it a bit, works well when the SS retracts as designed.  I can hardly wait to try it with several of my 2" scope filters, even if they don't work it wll be fun experimenting.  The filter shown is a Burgess CX - 4, may he RIP, a great astro builder !

4 minutes ago, Elp said:

I hate my south roof... there's one directly north too. And a lamppost directly east...

Better take up golf, lol !

3 hours ago, cimh said:

Yes, because Seestar is tilted then viewing towards the south becomes restricted as it thinks the horizon is much higher than it really is. I think polaris sinks lower in the sky as you move towards the equator in which case people living in lower latitudes will be more restricted as the seestar has to be tilted more to line up with Polaris.  I hope that's right

And 90% of the great objects are in the south quadrant so if it takes the horizon too high a SS'er will miss out on a high number of dso's !  In the summer Scorpius, Sagittarius, etc. and a lot that goes alongside them !  Hopefully not but ......... ?

As per another site we are having no luck in taking the North Star, Polaris !  It won't centre,in my case it seems to stay located in the upper left corner, if I manually centre it it returns to the upper left, if I try to enhance it from there it won't / can't take it !  Other have the same issue.  Anyone over in your part of the world have any luck with Polaris ?

14 hours ago, Elp said:

It's still cheaper than other filters... Remember the SS has one built in, it's just not as narrow a bandpass as a dedicated filter like the SV220 or L-extreme/Ultimate or any of the others out there.

Before I spend the $'s I want to try the ones I have, I have a real assortment from my refractors !  I have a unique 2" Burgess X-4 that I am dying to try, first thing as the objects I want to try it with get high enough, early enough.

1 hour ago, DaveL59 said:

Not ready to throw this sort of money in for a filter, not yet at least, but IIRC powerlord has experimented using a L-Extreme on the S50 for some excellent results. So some here may be interested in this option

Currently just under USD160 on the long river place at the moment.

With ship. & tax about $300 C on Amazon !