ollypenrice

What did the postman bring? He didn't bring anything. We have a new one and he doesn't like bringing things. He likes sticking a slip in the letterbox saying he tried to bring something but we weren't in (when we were) so we should collect it the following day at the post office. When we go to the post office he hasn't brought it there either so we are invited to come back the next day. Now you might think that this is a pain in the bum but that's because you don't know how nice it is talking to our young postmistress! 😍 😁lly

I agree with Davey-T. I would put your cash into an HEQ5 and use your present lenses for the moment. I would also kit out the mount with an autoguider. Opinion on the need for this in a first step is divided but I'm inflexible on the matter: tot up your existing investment and then ask yourself whether it is really worth clobbering the quality of your results by not guiding? When I started I took Ian King's advice and did a lot of things that beginners are usually advised not to do from the 'off.' I guided from night one, went straight into CCD and straight into mono. I'm not advising CCD or mono - you have the camera side covered - but if I were you I would start guiding straight away. It is the life blood of astrophotography and is not difficult. I have never doubted the wisdom of Ian's advice and continue to repeat it. Olly

At my dark site in SE France I find that poor seeing and wind are consistently linked. Indeed it takes more than a day of calm weather for the seeing to be restored. There are days of low perceptible wind when the seeing is also poor but that will be from high altitude winds. Olly

You send me two instruments, an 8 inch TEC apochromat and an exquisitely figured 8 inch Newt, both F8. I test them. I report my findings. At the end of the test I return the Newt. 😁lly

Yes! I want to throw my ice-cream at a Newt! Olly

I've heard this argument using the term 'cells of turbulence.' The fewer turbulent cells your scope looks through, the less it is affected. I have no means of commenting on this since I've no useful experience. Olly

It should indeed improve the view. Resolution may not be adversely affected because less use will be made of the outer part of the mirror. There is a solution. You can use a curved spider which will smear out the spikes, spreading the diffraction effects around the source so that they are no longer visible. Such spiders are quite widely used, notably on Obsession Dobs. Quite honestly you have more than enough light for the planets, though, when using an aperture mask. Olly

12mph doesn't sound too bad if you can keep out of the worst of it. The less obvious problem is that it plays havoc with the seeing, so imaging at high resolution won't work out. Low res setups are much less affected. Olly

And of course... 😁lly

Exactly. I simply don't need any updates. I've seen only one thing from the latest Ps that I might like and I can continue to do without it. I don't suppose it was ever offered as an update anyway. Olly

Mine's legit but why would I want to register it? (Genuine question.) I felt no need to give Adobe any information about me. Olly

But what I find is that the so-called innovations are often compulsive changes without being improvements. However, AstroArt has, as Ken said, been regularly updated. There was, for example, a spectacular improvement in the Sigma reject algorithm between, I think,V 4 and V5. On the other hand the change in Trichromy management between 5 and 6 has caused me to leave V5 on my hard drive for that function. Olly

Buy a Dobsonian, not that EQ2. It is a wobbly mount and offers equatorial tracking which you don't need and will require polar aligning. Oh, you did! Good choice. Your main priority now needs to be learning your way around sky charts and knowing what to look for. Turn Left at Orion is rightly popular. Olly

Anything we haven't seen before is worth a go. Keep at it or come back to it, please! Olly

I never know when software is 'outdated' or it isn't. People say this about Atik's Artemis Capture. What I do know is that, sooner or later, some idiot will come along and fix what wasn't broken. Artemis capture and AstroArt work like a charm. I use AA for stacking, calibrating and colour combining, tasks it performs predictably and at lightning speed on clear, coherent screens. It has in-built line and column repair, hot pixel filtration etc etc and, above all, it leaves you in control because it isn't constantly trying to second guess your intentions. This is the most exasperating feature of may of its rivals. I know what I want to do. Just let me do it! Interestingly, when guests see me working on their data here using AstroArt for pre-processing, they often pull out their computers and buy it on the spot. That says something. Quite a few of them have been PI users. Olly PS I'm not on commission, by the way. Story of my life! 🤣

Yup. In my case, over the last 12 years, that would have been a cool £1,440.00. Bonkers. Olly

It ain't what you see, it's the way that you see it. Assuming more aperture, the SCT will take you deeper. But if it's an exquisite view you're after then you might prefer a classy refractor. To be honest the claims made for refractors are mainly valid for the very good ones. Another member once said that an SCT gives an image with more information in it, yet it's a scruffier image. I reckon that says it well. My concern about small SCTs is that they have limited aperture but a long FL when what I want out of a small scope is a wide FOV. Olly

Yes, I think the monthly rental idea stinks, quite honestly. I hope it fails and they drop it. Olly

I work mostly in Photoshop CS3 which I bought on a disk years ago. I like it because I don't like compulsory updates and changes! Most of my processing is done with this but a few key preliminary steps are done in Pixinsight. You can do everything in PI but Ps offers a fundamentally different approach to processing. Which you prefer will depend on how your mind works. For me, working in PI feels like trying to mend a watch using chopsticks. You have to do everything through the mathematical interface. In Ps the mathematical interface is given analogue controls which allow you to use virtual tools resembling physical ones. You can see what you are doing as you do it. The key aspect of Ps for me is the Layers function. I can modify a layer and retain the modified layer only where I want to do so. A wide range of selection tools and the eraser make this easy. Photoshop is 'see and touch,' if you like. PI claims to be truer to the data. That's only valid if you use Ps in ways in which I don't use it. Ps is often layers and selection while PI is masking. In the end the objectives are the same, to modify different parts of the image in different ways. Since 90°% of what I do in Ps is layers-based I cannot agree with Ken that AstroArt (which I use and love for pre-processing) offers 90% of Ps. It might for some but it doesn't for me. It depends on your workflow. There are other programs which offer layers but I haven't tried them. However, there are many plug-ins for Photoshop and lots of astro-specific tutorials as well. Astro Pixel Processor is also winning many friends. For me the processing is the fun part and in Ps I've found an environment which suits my mindset. Others will say exactly the same thing about other programs and quite rightly so. We are not all the same. Olly

There is more to the Ethos than its staggering FOV, though in a Dob this is very useful in prolonging the time between nudges. I'm only talking about the 13mm here, since it's the only one I know, but it has an extraordinary clarity or transparency. I've never used any EP in which I was so unaware of the glass in front of my eye. This is hard to define but I'm not alone in having this feeling. Without any doubt at all it is the best EP I've ever used. Also, moving your head to peer into the edge of field is an immersive and exciting experience. Olly

Whether or not the Telrad will be useful depends on how you do your star alignment. For me a Telrad or finder is useful because I push my mount, not swtiched on, to an alignemnt star, switch it on, confirm that star and then go to my imaging camera. I then center the star precisely in the screen crosshair and over-ride my initial rough star alignment. However, this is not on a Skywatcher mount so your star alignment routine will be different. Still, I think a camera-free finder is often an advantage. Olly

I'm not persuaded by the 'lots of eyepieces' approach and could live with just two, or a third for shorter FL scopes when observing planets. The two which I have used as 'defaults' in both a 20 inch Dob and a 14 inch SCT are the TV Ethos 13mm and the TV 26mm Nagler. A longer FL Ethos might be even nicer than the Nagler but I'll probably never know!! A very wide field is a big, big bonus in a non-tracking mount. Olly

I've only tried the Vixens which a guest brought along a while ago. While the FOV is clearly enormous I only felt comfortable looking straight through them rather than peering into the edge of field as you do with a widefield eyepiece. Then again, does this matter because with binos you can just move your head and bins together? (I think you can even buy a head clamp device so you wear them like specs, in effect.) It was like having super-duper eyesight and very interesting. (My unaided vision is poor.) The Milky way was wonderful. I liked them but wasn't afflicted with that deadly 'must have' conviction that we all fear! Olly

In fact, they don't. The original purpose of adjustable guidescope rings was quite the reverse. Early autoguiders were of very low sensitivity and the imager would have to search for a guide star by aiming the guidesope off axis towards one. Indeed, before that there were manual guidescopes which, likewise, would be aimed towards a star on which the tormented imager would try to hold the mount by means of the keypad. Mercifully modern guide cameras will always find a star so it is better to have a rigid mounting. You do not need to align the guide and main scope. I'm not sure why Louise is doubtful about the finder scope bracket. Some of them have only two adjustable alignment screws and a third which is spring loaded rather than adjustable. This is fine for finders but very unsuited to guidescopes. Make sure your guidescope is bolted down hard. Olly

If you were an insurer, what would you think of selling a policy to you? Quite honestly £100 sounds OK to me. Olly