ollypenrice

Blue wildebeest are gnus to me. Olly

Quite honestly, a lot of lunar photographers couldn't tell a gnu from a wildebeest. Olly

I'm not a great fan of Crayfords, including Moonlites, but I don't think the tension screw is there to remove play. That can be adjusted independently. Olly

That takes the biscuit! Regarding perspective tricks with long lenses, it's not the trick itself which bothers me. (And it is an optical trick, after all.) It's the marketing or presentation of such images with the 'supermoon' tagline and no acknowledgement of the fact that the moon never looks like that to the naked eye. This feeds the mumbo-jumbo pseudo-astronomy cults abroad on the social media. Also, many of the images we see elsewhere are very obviously Photoshop composites, not acknowledged as such. Olly

That's my point as well. It's just getting silly. Olly

Yes, but using either Photoshop or lens artifacts to give the impression that the full moon is vast is, in my view, phoney. It is especially phoney when given the tag line 'supermoon' when you and I know perfectly well that the moon varies in apparent diameter by an entirely trivial amount. The picture above is a trick, no more. It has nothing to do with what anyone sees. Olly

Olly

I'm bemused by the fact that the moon I see when I go outside can still be hidden behind a pencil at arm's length and yet the moons posted on social media, behind church steeples and Greek temples, are getting larger by the month. These composite absurdities simply go unchallenged by hordes of applauding commentators. Do they ever actually look at the moon? Olly

That is not the flexible thing I tried. Olly

Wow, that's beautiful - and original. Dusty stuff and emission managed to perfection in the processing. Olly

That makes sense. The JTD may be the one which appeared after my conversation with FLO. I think the one I found too flexible was the ADM/ An idea came to me in bed last night! Why not put a second dual mounting system on the top of the scopes? Hang the expense. Olly

Lovely to hear this. I'm glad I asked. He really was a great guy. Olly

'We do not do these things because they are easy...' Olly

Yet another reason to go to FLO where retail expertise is matched by subject expertise. I wonder if Chris knew Alan Longstaff at Hertfordhire. Alan wore his neurobiological hat there rather than his astronomical one but you never know. Olly

I remember that feeling and fully understand your excitement. Olly

Do nothing by rote: even when following oft-repeated and good advice, understand what it is you are doing and why. Processing, in particular, is about thinking, not clicking. Olly

What happened, if I remember correctly, is that FLO were offering a comparable product but, when I tried it, I found it too flexible, as did another customer. I sent some pictures of the out-of-production Cassady off to them to show how it worked and FLO inspired a new version which may be the present ADM, I don't know. My acquisition of a used Cassady makes a mildly amusing tale of subterfuge which I'm afraid I can't relate on here! Despite being used it cost a fortune and is, I must say, about as good as it gets. Construction is distinctly massive. Maybe I'll try 'The Tomato Variation!' Olly

All I would say is that the Samyang has done well and that F ratio is meaningful if you don't want to crop and concentrate on a region of interest - which you don't in the case of the IFN. Olly

Good idea. What kind of alignment device are you using and how well do you find it works on your high res setup? There's been considerable discussion of this. I find that the Cassady T-Gad, which worked perfectly with the dual FSQ106, does not kill flexure entirely reliably with the dual TEC140. Olly

Unless it's been improved recently, I wouldn't bother with the Tak FS60 for imaging. Data I processed from two of these had very poor control of blue stars. Visually they are nice for the aperture, though. Olly

In truth I've subscribed to 'never change it and get it running like a Swiss watch' principle myself and it's worked for me for a long time. However, it will eventually be overtaken by new technology and, I suspect, already has been. Maybe I need to move into 'Don't change it, Epoch Two!' lly

Yes, I was taking something of a shortcut on the capture side. With a certain setup you will, I think, be able to reach a point at which guiding, exposure time, focus, polar alignment, choice of filters etc for a given rig will not have much left to give. I won't say 'nothing to give,' because perfection is a tricky business! But new gear with potential for higher resolution, new techniques bringing lucky imaging in deep sky work, etc etc are all fields for development. You're quite right. Olly

Capture and processing are two parts of the game. The difficulties involved in capture are finite and, after a while, anyone who decides to stay in the game will reach a point at which further improvement will make little difference to their results. Processing, however, may have an equivalent point of little further improvement but, if it has, I have not yet got anywhere near it. I haven't altered my capture methods in seven years but my processing is constantly evolving. Here are my thoughts on processing: thrash about experimenting, by all means, but, while you are thrashing about, think about the tools you are using. Think about what they are doing to your data. Understand them. Work it out. Don't just 'click and look.' Click, look and think. Don't do anything by rote but, rather, understand what you are doing. That way you can teach yourself effectively. There are some utterly ridiculous 'tutorials' on the web in which people hack away at their data with not a clue as to what they are doing. The moment you hear one of these people say, 'I just play around till I like what I see' switch off and don't go back. For less thrashing and more structured learning you could try Steve Richards' book https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/dark-art-or-magic-bullet-steve-richards.html . It's primarily Photoshop. One of the problems with the many alternatives is that there is not the same level of teaching available and, having been a teacher for a while by trade, I do believe in teaching and in structured learning. Olly

Oh, now that really is something and, as ever, the processing is totally invisible. A perfect image really leaves nothing more to say! Olly