ollypenrice

This is the Federation of Astronomical Societies' list of affiliated clubs. https://fedastro.org.uk/fas/members/members-location-by-county/ If you were to contact the ones in your area, explaining your situation, I dare say you'd soon be talking to a human being willing to help you and, at the same time, help his friends/fellow members find their way to some bargains. My policy has always been to sell cheaply and sell quickly. I hope you won't be so sheltered as to leave SGL! Olly

It is a nice one. It looks as if you have a bit of the dreaded tile pattern showing through from star removal. I find I can't predict when I'm going to get this and when I'm not, nor do I have any real fix for it. I hope the developer is working on it. In this case it's only slight. Olly

Subtle processing. Nice. Olly

Lots to enjoy in the image, particularly the extended red emission, but the halos would bug me, too. Olly

As with your NAN-Pelican, how about a compromise with smaller stars? In both cases I think your nebulosity is stunning. Olly

Two things have perked up my enthusiasm for imaging (which hadn't left me but was diminished.) 1) Using an automated rig which means I don't have to be up all night. Running Les Granges, the all nighter had become a lifestyle for about 200 nights a year and it became too much as I headed for seventy. 2) Switching to super-fast F2 systems with CMOS cameras. This lets me capture images which are not just shorter in exposure, but which give a different perspective on objects. In a nutshell we get more faint dust and less emission gas for a refreshing new look. The speed also makes large mosaics very attractive. Olly

This is a very good framing and not one we regularly see. Olly

I've had lots of these things and I'd always go for the Telrad. It's quite large but it lasts for decades and uses normal batteries which you can find anywhere and is so logical to use that you can lose the instructions and not worry about it. A circle is way better than a dot because it gives you a scale on the sky. It 'just works,' which is a minor miracle in astronomy. Olly

Me too. Olly

The net is packed full of problem Quarks. When they work they're great but I'm not inclined to risk it. Olly

M31 reaches well beyond your present field of view. This will give you an idea of what's to be had within your field and either side of it. You certainly need a lot more signal but this won't do you much good unless you can flatten your image effectively - that's to say remove sky gradients. In this orientation the upper left half of your image has a very bright patch of background which will probably be coming from LP. It is certainly not signal from M31. Because I shoot from a dark site I'm not very experienced in fighting severe gradients like this but the starting point would be something like Dynamic Background Extraction in Pixinsight or one of the other gradient tools from another astro-specific software. These will all be more successful with more exposure - much more. Olly

Having once split a slab with expansion bolts, I use only builder's epoxy of whatever make they have in the store. I drill a snug hole with a big hammer drill, squirt in the two-pack epoxy and tap in the threaded bar with a hammer. I don't hit the threaded bar, only a nut and locknut threaded onto the top of it. This method has never failed for pier fixings and we have 8 piers here. Olly

I think it would depend on the resolution at which it was presented. At normal screen resolution only pixel peepers would find any difference. Olly

That's exquisite, Rodd, on all counts. How could a NB rendition of this region be better? I have no idea. Olly

I really do like these. To my eye, NB images look so much better with a reasonably light, dusky-looking and colour-neutral background sky, of which this is a perfect example. Olly

That has something to say! Olly

That's a very clean, crisp image. Good stuff. Olly

Woo Hoo, Me too! lly

Our last guest, an SGL member, is a designer of fast video cameras which record, among other things, crack propagation in glass. May I suggest that you buy a new screen (a self calibrating Eizo would be a good choice) and repeat the attempt while filming it in a 2.5 million frames per second camera? Then you could post the video to provide a unique entertainment experience for us all! Olly

You need red. The main reason is that Ha stars will be much smaller than broadband red ones but, also, not all red in the sky is from Ha. A lot of it is found in dusty regions or in regions of ERE (Extended Red Emission.) Note how blue your stars are. In my view, the filter to dump would be the SII since it makes the smallest contribution to Ha OIII SII palettes on most objects and because 2 channel NB like HOO works so well. Olly

No starless versions from me! I've never posted one. Olly

Oh, I agree. A basic stretch will reveal defects, and the fewer the better. My enthusiasm for the RASA 8 and the Samyang 135 are predicated on the availablity of star-control software. Certainly in the case of the Samyang, I wouldn't consider it at all without StarX or Starnett. (I use StarX.) The RASA is much more attractive with this software but would be tempting without it. We'd all like perfect optics, mount and camera. When we have to settle for less, it seems wise to reflect on which hardware shortcomings we can fix in processing and which hardware virtues we can best exploit. I find the RASA and Samyang data both fixable and exploitable thanks to post processing. In wafting, sing-song voice, 'I can't hear you, I can't hear you!' However, you are welcome to add diff spikes to any of my images. May I suggest carving them into your screen with a pointed stick??? lly

- Big crude stars as produced by small amateur optics. - Vast amounts of information contained in the data not rendered visible. (Faint nebulosity from emission and reflection.) Olly Edit. I think this has more to say and is much nicer to look at.

OK, let's try it: Of lesser importance, it is a horrible image. Of greater importance, I gained no pleasure whatever from producing it!! It offered all the intellectual interest of stretching an elastic band. If that was all that astrophotography had to offer I wouldn't do it. Olly

TeleVue Genesis, bought very cheaply because it was out of collimation. I took a risk. Turned out that re-collimating the front lens cell is dead easy and took me about half an hour. Olly