ultranova

Hi Every one,

I managed to get a sneaky 3 hours of imaging done last night,

with the Asi air pro, which i have been using now for the several months,

and i have to say, its been reliable and does the job intended.

But after  a firmware update yesterday afternoon, it was doing,

some erratic things, initially i saw a bit of an improvement with the ,

multi star guiding, well for ten minutes anyway, then it would just randomly,

go mad looking for a guide star and it would say guide star lost,

it would then settle down after resetting the guide star,

then it would do it it again , if that wasn't bad enough, 

the zwo eaf could not find focus,, i would have to manually get the 

focus good as i could then do a automatic focus, and this happened,

every time it went into the focus mode.

if it was just one thing i might be able to put it down to a suspect cable.

My main question is has anybody else had problems with the latest firmware upgrade.

it was fine before this.

Any help would be appreciated 

Clear skies, Paul

Nice colours and details coming through,

Good job with the Dslr,  looks good.

Well done 

Paul

Amazing colours and detail,

with such short exposure times,

simply stunning Peter.

well done 

Paul

13 minutes ago, cfinn said:

The more I think about it, if you want to go this deep for not an extortionate amount of money then a RASA/HyperStar or a fast Newtonian are your best/only options. You could use a small refractor with a focal reducer, but then I don't think you can get to f4 or below without problems, plus you start to under sample and lose detail. You could also trade focal ratio for big aperture and large pixels (e.g. CDK, RC), but then you have a very long focal length and would need a very large corrected field and a large sensor to maintain a decent image scale, so things start getting expensive quickly. Also the bulk would mean you couldn't travel to dark skies if you live (like most of us) in a light polluted area.

Despite being a refractor fan, I would probably conclude that the apex of value, performance and versatility for average seeing and variable weather is probably an 8-10 inch, f4 corrected Newtonian Astrograph, such as this. With modern CMOS sensors this gives you an ideal sampling rate of 1"/pixel, you get good sky coverage with APS-C sized sensors and good SNR on faint targets in reasonable amount of time. You would need four 5" f7 apochromatic refractors imaging simultaneously to match it! The downside of course are those diffraction spikes and Newtonians are a bit cumbersome. They don't cut the clean, slender lines of a nice refractor and they are slightly less easy to use. So I guess if money was no object, I would spend £20k for a Riccardi Honders astrograph such as this!

Interesting topic  for sure, my only add to this is focal length,

the two scopes you have suggested are very nice but with two to  nearly 3 times the focal length,

to see the IMF in the better context, you want the Rasa Like Olly said, extremely  fast and a relatively short focal length

off hand I think about 400mm if I remember correctly, .

other wise to do a deep mosaic of the IFN it would probably take a year, , well it would in rainy England where I am lol

Paul

Nicely done , nice colour and detail 

very nice 

Paul

Wow yet another treat for the eyes,

beautifully processed as per norm

well done Peter

Paul 

Congratulations on the Award Peter ,

well disserved for a stunning image.

Nicely done

Paul 

Eye candy for sure Peter,

Astrophotography at its best.

well done.

Paul

6 hours ago, geeklee said:

Fantastic Paul - great image.

Thanks for the kind words....appreciated 

On 11/05/2021 at 19:35, peter shah said:

A super image

Thanks Petet much appreciated 

Hi Every one, 

Just finished putting together a  double rig  and thus is first light with it

which comprises of a small 71 wo refractor and a canon camera, this shot was with the canon

camera and lens.

composes of 28, 2minute subs with a astro modified canon 700d and 135mm Samyang f2 lens.

Bias flats and darks were used.

It has been a long time since I have processed dslr photos, and it shows lol, a bit noisy, and I

could not stop Deneb over powering the near center of the image, but overall I am pleased that

it all come together on a first light.

thanks for looking  and clear sky's.

Paul

Nicely done, 

this part of the sky never gets old

Paul

wow stunning .

Well done 

Paul

That's come out nice,

Detail is good the only thing that its lacking a bit is blue,

There's normally a fairly strong blue  hue to most of the galaxy

for some reason there does not seem to be none.

the Ha is really coming through nice though.

well done 

Paul

What a cracker, This is a first for me seeing this Galaxy

And what a super job you have done on it.

Judging by the size of it, you need quite an amount of focal length like your

Esprit 150 to get that level of detail.

well done 

Paul

Nice amount of detail coming through,

and the colors are nice.

what's not to like.

Looks like your on a winner with Adam's old Mono camera.

well done 

Paul

Stunning, what a lovely  capture colors and detail are top notch,

wall hanger for sure.

well done.

Paul

That's come out nice,

Nicely done with the Star adventurer .

well done 

Paul

Not for the faint hearted this target,

You definitely went the right way by using the samyang lens,

was this taken in a dark location, and were any filters used,

or was it just pure RGB you capturing.

Very good effort indeed. 

you certainly captured  a lot of the IFN in the region,

I think I would have backed off a bit on the processing and it it still would have been a awesome catch. 

Nicely done 

Paul

It always amazes me  how deep you can go in such a small amount of time,

you have certainly grabbed some nice data and have processed it nice it to draw out the faint stuff,

Is you plan to hit one target with both Rasa's or go on there separate ways and get two targets in one night.

Must be nice to have them sort of options.

very nice set up you have there.

Nicely done 

Paul

A very nice start indeed,

If I remember correctly this galaxy has a lovely golden hue to it,

Unless I am thinking of another.

Good luck Michael with the color data.

You never know your luck.

Paul 

Wow, Breathtaking

Beautifully processed, a Grand entrance into SGL that's for sure.

Looking forward to your next master piece.

Well done 

Paul

Thanks for sharing, I have never seen this one before,

Nicely captured.

well done 

Paul

Amazing for 90 minutes,

Nicely processed , a nice 3d feel to it

well done 

Paul

Very nice indeed,

A excellent first dabble into narrow band.

well done 

Paul