MarkRadice

Thank you for the kind comments and likes, much appreciated. @neiil phillips - it takes me moments to derotate Jupiter! Like you I only review the good ones and because FireCapture records in winjupos format it takes mere seconds to load, hit F11 and the circle lines up hit save and done. Few of those and load into derotation and Robert is your mother’s brother. Forecast looks good for next few days so I’m going to give it another go if energy levels allow!!

For the first time, I have caught a reasonable image at the beginning of a season. Normally my best images come at the end after much practice. This was taken with my second hand Celestron C11, f20, ASI224MC one shot colour on an EQ6 while watching the world wake up - the last shots were against a blue sky! Around 12k frames, best 1000 sharpened in Registax. My workflow is here: https://youtu.be/QesmmxCb_h0 (although my early videos aren't that good so I should probably re-record this!). Oh and I got my first view of Mars as well. Only ~8' at the moment but Mare Cimmerium is visible. All images sent to the BAA and ALPO for collation and analysis. Well worth the horrors of an 0300 alarm clock. To be honest it was nice to feel cool for a few hours! Alas back to work now.

Lovely Saturn. Well done, that’s beautiful.

The Modern Moon by Charles Wood is thoroughly recommended. He writes for Sky and Telescope and came up with the Lunar 100. A well written book that explains why things look the way they do.

Nah the best approach is to keep looking through the eyepiece when doing a goto. It’s like being in Star Wars hyperdrive as an endless streams of stars shoot across the field of view.

I have been following this discussion with interest so thank you for all your thoughts. I have a Lunt 60mm (with a nice shiny new blue filter) but like us all, hanker after something bigger. Alas the price of a large solar scope is quite prohibitive. As I already have a Megrez 90, I was tempted by the Quark so I was kindly lent a Herschel Wedge and Quark by a friend in the astronomy club (in exchange for a cream tea in the garden!). I put my thoughts on both in the video below. In summary, it is fantastic approach but only gives a high power view due to the built in barlow. My existing Lunt is far more versatile as you can do whole disc and zoom in with a barlow. But the higher power views are where the action is ... and it is over twice the aperture so provides a higher resolution view. I am currently lobbying for a Quark from CinC HOME and will probably sell my Lunt second hand to give me a very portable night time scope that doubles as a larger solar scope. I hope that helps - of course my approach assumes already have a refractor.

Fantastic! You must have been up early. Do you stay up or go back to bed afterwards?

Awesome set up Craig. Looking forward to more of your planetary images this autumn. How does it (and you!) cope with the focuser on the inside? Is that just for balance and will you pivot round for observing?

Fantastic results, Neil. Great to see you capturing Jupiter so early in the season. Next stop Mars I hope?

Where about are you? Don’t forget eta Carina down there too! An amazing sight in any instrument!

Apologies, don’t go with them. Having waited weeks for mine to arrive, I’ve now found their too small. Don’t go with what I’ve said. Apologies once again.

I’ve just measured my WO 90Megrez and ordered screws from eBay: 5/32 x 1/3 32tpi

Lovely details there, Neil. Great capture - you must have been up early.

Sounds like you’re on to a winner! As you say, it’s very comfortable to observe with isn’t it? And it looks like you have some lovely dark skies behind you.

I like that! Great job - definitely not under mounted What was or will be first light?

That looks amazing, I like the double hinge approach. What made you chose that over a single hinge? Regardless it looks great, although it could do with a drinks holder for those warm spring evenings that are just around the corner (I hope!). The aluminium billet looks grand! Definitely not under-mounted!

Hi Tom - so glad that the video has been of use. I look forward to seeing your workmanship, especially the L-bracket as I am thinking of upgrading mine along those lines. Cheers Ollie - much appreciated. Clear skies to you all!

Thank you, Jim, that's very kind of you. In the meantime, I hope your skies are clearer than mine!

Argh! duplicate post!

And I thoroughly recommend that you download stellarium. It’s a free planetarium software for laptop/PC that shows the night sky for s given time-date-location with the ability to zoom in and out. Very easy to use and excellent value for money at that price! it shows the constellations, moon, planets and deep sky objects with an attractive and simple to use interface.

Thanks for your help, chaps, really appreciated. I’ll drop EarthWin or Denkmeir a line to see if they can advise - and will read deeper into the link provided.

I hope this is of use! As a keen lunar imager I published a tutorial describing my approach to high resolution lunar imaging. Using a high speed camera we record thousands of frames through the turbulence of the atmosphere and then use free software to reject those blurred by poor seeing and stack the sharpest ready for wavelet sharpening. This approach allows the telescope to perform at its best despite the best efforts of the seeing and resulted in an image in this year's Astrophotography of the Year competition. This process, although needing tailoring, will work with any set up that records frames or videos. Any questions or comments then let me know - although I cannot help with the constant grey skies.

You're right but I want one of the thingies that screws into the powerswitch. If you look closely, the adaptor has a flanged connector so an ordinary 2-1.25" adaptor won't work.

I would be grateful for some advice. I have an Earthwin Power Switch, a device I bought second hand. This allows me to go from 0.67x to 1x to 2x magnification of my binoviewers by sliding a barlow lens and focal reducer into the light path. As you can imagine, this is a very convenient way to observe as I can switch from low to high power without changing eyepieces. It came with an adaptor (in the centre of the two photos) that connects into the power switch itself but is the wrong size for my diagonal. I must admit to being a bit bamboozled by all the different types of threads and connectors on the market. Does anyone know what I need to order to screw into the diagonal so that I can connect to the power switch? Thanks in advance!

Amazing sketches! I’d suggest it’s worth searching up the BAA Venus section as they would be, I’m sure, interested in your observations - as well as sending out a regular newsletter.