bomberbaz

Yes we are getting a spell of clear weather and what do we have, a flipping full moon. 

OK if your imaging I suppose or a lunar fanatic, but I really fancy having a proper bash at my new dark site on the wonders in and around Sagittarius.

I blame sod!

I think you may have a case to answer. Even if it's current name remains, nothing to stop you (and anyone else) using that name.

Ok so went out to a dark (ish) site the other night and a mate was there imaging with his AZ Gti, his mount had no free play like mine has.

So contacted FLO to check they have a mount that is threaded and going to get a new one, this will hopefully tighten up my tracking.

I will use my iffy one for solar viewing. 

3 hours ago, geeks said:

Have managed a couple of evenings with the GTi now. Guiding is a bit off but I will tweak that where I can. Two pics, Andromeda 120 x 1min (no filters) and Soul Neb 45 x 3min (Altair Triband). Both on a Altair Astro 60EDF with a 0.8 reducer and an Altair Astro 533MC Protech

 

 

Cracking images them, lot of detail. Where abouts were you to get your data?

nothing wrong with that , quite impressive actually. 

Prior to the trip I had arranged to meet up with some lads from the local astro society, 4 of us turned up although only two of us were doing anything visual. We all had imaging rigs but mine was laid out onto auto pilot and forgotten about until i left.

For visual I was using my TS optics 82mm bins on the parallelogram mount (which I love) and really only used the 24 and 18 APM UFF eyepieces. Filters for nebula were TV bandmate.

I had made a list of possible DSO but when I got there at least half went out of the window. I forgot we had a raised southern elevation but nevermind. (This killed lots of the Sagittarius part) 

I scratched all the globulars from the list and stuck with galaxies and nebula plus a few asterisms. (plus a brief peep at a low Jupiter)

So I got to start off with the coathanger although at first this was difficult. Mainly due to the fact the (legal) laser pointer I was using needed collimating to the bins. After this finding things became somewhat easier.  Using a laser  (bins rough point, laser on, find and off) was a novel and fun way to find objects, not sure if I would use it on my dob though.

This venue used to be very good but now on 50% of the horizon you get a lovely blue (LED Lamp) glow so as your evening doesn't get too dark. So this made my first set of other DSO (saggitarius nebulas) harder to find as A. they were quite washed out in the middle of the glow and B. I struggled even in full darkness to find stars to guide me. I would point out  the milky way was clearly visible overhead and struck a lovely sight but that darn blue horizon glow. This is no longer a horsehead type venue sadly although still 8/10 overall.

Moving on, yes I got M's 8,16,17 & 20 and 8, the lagoon was a maiden find, very chuffed with this although all 4 were pretty "meh!" in the gloop. The veil was superb in the east but lacklustre, although visible to the west strangely enough. Historically i have always found it the other way around but maybe it works differently when viewed through bino's!  Moving on again NGC 7000 was exquisite, like a fluff of candy floss sprinkled in star dust. I spent quite a while on this even though at zenith it was hard work but it was the best view I have had of this little gem. I tried the heart and soul as well, I got one of those am I seeing it definately maybe moments, spent ages blinking, tapping the mount, eventually swearing under my breath but in the end I gave up unconvinced I had bagged either.

Other good hits made were M81 & 82 easily in one fov, M51, M31 & M33 as well as the merest of smudges to bag the elusive M101. This last one really took some finding and confirming.  M33 and M31 both showed sign's of structure, particularly andromeda which had the bonus of M110 to the top. None of the other galaxies offered much detail to speak of. I now wish I had had a go with the 10mm APM on the galaxy DSO's but I was so absorbed in my viewing that I forgot to change. I think the dimmer ones, well all of them really would have responded well to the extra push in magnification. (x26 to x49)

So in all it was a cracking little session, a couple of wow moments and I am finding out that bins have a bigger part to play than I first thought and a worthwhile evening but at 8C in August, I was glad I took my extra jacket.

Cheers all

Steve

1 minute ago, BinocularSky said:

A good southern horizon is key. I'm lucky in this regard, living relatively close to the south coast: from Purbeck, the nearest settlement to the south is Cherbourg, about 60 miles away.

Cheers Steve. I have to admit my near dark sky site (which is around an half hours drive) is a little wishy washy in the south, however the next decent location, which has a cracking southern horizon is an hour and a half away, so I will give it a shout at the near place first.

TBF I have managed M33 from it with my bins but then again that wasn't in the south.

great list for August, the Sagittarius targets are amazing, still never had the lagoon, hopefully this month. 

Thanks Steve 👌 

On 28/07/2022 at 09:23, Elp said:

The 30s one look like better signal if that's the top image, further time will undoubtedly provide a better test.

top image is indeed at 30 seconds, stronger signal for sure but more noise. 

As you say, more time (data) will hopefully give a more conclusive result. 

Just thought I would add some no cooled files from different exposure times, as mentioned it was at the start of my own learning curve and up until now I had not done a process of comparable files using a measureable process.

Anyway, did it earlier, basic processing using siril. Both pictures very noisy as only 5 minutes data each.  10x30 seconds and 30x10 seconds.

Going off these results I think next decent nights worth of imaging I will try to obtain some decent amounts of (semi cooled) data on a bright-ish object such as the owl/dumbbell to run a better comparison but run at longer times. 30 seconds and 60 seconds with a total at minimum of 30 minutes minimum but ideally 1 hour I think. 

I am only using a 50mm scope to grab data so as results stand they are inconclusive. 

10 x 30

30 x 10

This is my effort from uncooled although ti was from the starting point of my learning curve. The OP may remember it from the AZ Gti thread.

NGC7380 (Wizard) - ZWO 224mc - 200 x 10sec and 10 x 30sec starting at an ambient of 18C dropping to about 11C, working camera at average 18C, it cooled as the night went on. It's quite red I know. 

Only a rough effort. However I think 30 seconds is a good starting exposure length for this camera, gain trial and error. 

Going forward I shall reserve this camera for colder nights and smaller targets. I will also make use of a USB smartphone cooler going forward, the one I have lowers the temp of camera by around 6 -10 degree C, depending on ambient. The warmer it is, the more it cools. (I forgot it on the night I grabbed the data from the attached).

Anyway, the 224MC (uncooled) still has a place in my bag.

Well done michael, I didn't manage to image it, it was right in a position where a street lamp is in the way. 

When I tried moving the rig to a position where it was just out of line of sight of the lamp, the comet (or where it should have been) disappeared behind the wall too. 🙄

7 hours ago, symmetal said:

Do you still have the unbinned files or did you bin them in the camera? If you don't have the unbinned files then you've removed the colour information by binning so it can't be resurrected again. 

Using super-pixel debayering on your unbinned raw files you will effectively bin the image 2x2 while keeping the colour information, and also avoid the normal debayer interpolation of every other pixel 

Alan

Cheers Alan, I thought as much. Like I said, something of an experiment and no major amount of data involved thankfully. 

thanks for the reply.

Steve

Tonight I decided to bin my files of IC5076 as my tracking was a bit wobbly, I was given to believe this helps with the image quality and tbh I was just experimenting a little. I use a OSC 183MC Pro.

What I wasn't aware of was that the image data would become B&W. Thinking about it, it is obvious. 

Anyway, I know PIPP will debayer the files but is this the best way to resurrect the colour within the data.

I have access to PIPP, DSS, Registax, Siril and Gimp

I am hoping the skies hold out long enough for me to grab some data on it too!

11 hours ago, johnfosteruk said:

That's nice.

I downloaded the Stephan's Quintet data last night - nice big files aren't they.  I'll be having a play with them tonight.

Make sure you let us see your results.  I am looking forward to it. 

@StuartT, your "go" at the carina nebula is superb. 

Just having a look out to see if there is a chance to image Panstarrs 2017 k2 but there is cloud bubbling up. I will give it a while as it may briefly clear. Think I will done a manual alignment if it does and let the tracking do the work.

7 minutes ago, Elp said:

Similar, but use a lynx astro EQ DIR cable if it's the same cable as the above, it has an rj12 connection on the one end for azgtis.

This one I bet Lynx Astro FTDI EQDIR USB Adapter for Sky-Watcher AZ, GTi Mounts | First Light Optics

I use a Lynx astro ED Mod cable but select Skywatcher AZ Gti as the mount. I believe some select EQ Mod although they both work.

8 minutes ago, Elp said:

Think the asiair also falls into that camp

I think we are both on the same page.

7 minutes ago, Elp said:

Glad you sorted it. Even though I've got the gem, I still use the azgtis more, they're just quicker to setup and less to carry outside.

That is the only reason I image. If I didn't have this I wouldn't bother. It's probably the best value for money bit of kit going. 

Hello all.

I first captured and processed M13 cluster in mid May. There is only half an hour of data and the first image is processed via Gimp only. However  having recently been introduced to Siril I am doing my initial processing using this and then tidying up in Gimp

I should mention that I installed Py-astro tools to gimp and there are some very useful tools in this add on. Notably red sky purge and star enhancement, the latter came in handy with the second image.

So the latter image is pre-processed in Siril, then onto Gimp for finishing. (Forgot to crop 2nd image)

2 hours ago, happy-kat said:

The difference with the Wizard is well like chalk and cheese looks so much cleaner, it's great to read your perseverance to fettle the settings to fix your mount.

It has been very challenging at times so thank you for your appreciation. As for the wizard, given the data is as mentioned from an uncooled camera on quite a warm night, I am very happy with it.

2 hours ago, Elp said:

I'm sure you probably already do this but do you calibrate every time after you've done a goto to your target in question?

When you watch the calibration do the N, E, S, W follow a straight line for each direction (ie N will go in one direction in a straight line, then the opposite S will follow that same line but in a reverse direction (same for E and W in relation to each other)). You can normally guess your tracking will be off if it doesn't do this right.

What's your guiderate on sidereal 0.75x? Mines set at 0.9x the max, it's the same sidereal rate on my gem28 too.

Yes got my calibration off to a tee now. Does the whole thing now in 4 or 5 steps each way.

Guide rate is at 0.75, aggression is 60% Dec and 50% RA. These suggest the settings are pretty spot on.  Seem to remember Lee saying he tracks his mount RA and Dec duration set at 500 for both. If that's right I really should have twigged earlier.

IMHO there should be more detailed guide with the AIR + when it arrives, nothing really prepares you for the complexity of sorting this tracking out if, like me your having a problem getting it going.

I think I will get a new mount anyway. It's a problem I don't seem to be able to sort out to my satisfaction. 

Ok let me elaborate on what went on with me last night and my findings. The guiding in RA was still pants at first last night so whilst the imaging was ongoing I was scanning through various guides and I got to thinking what could I change to tighten things up that I hadn't already tried!

First let me just go over the AZ Gti mount guide settings to show you my thinking. Exposure time on your guide camera checks the movement of your guide star and the mount reacts accordingly. The guiding rate is the level of the pulse that is transmitted to your mount although I have no idea what the pulse level is. 0.5x means the pulse will be at 50% and then the aggression settings are a fine tuning of the level of the guiding rate. 

I had been faffing around between 0.5 and 0.75 guiding and altering the aggression settings but I still could not get a decent RA tracking. So this left only MAX RA duration. This is to say the length of time the pulse whatever the setting is, is allowed to pulse for. I had left these at 2000ms because that was what one of the guides I had been referring to said to do. The rationale being that the mount supposedly only uses the level of pulse it needs to maintain the guide.  However if one has free movement within the axis (RA) might the pulse overshoot the required nudge needed to track? Well this was my thought track anyway. So I dropped RA duration right down to 500, then I reset tracking and boom, instant improvement. I sat there watching the tracking whilst nursing a can of beer for about twenty minutes and save the occasional blip it wass tracking at below 1, getting as low as 0.6 and this for me is amazingly good. 

Further tweaking followed and eventually I brought the RA down to 450ms and Dec 500ms. I was constantly tracking at around 0.7 to 0.8 which for me is amazing. The owl below shows the stars at the old settings, note they are oblong cause by the poor tracking in RA. The Wizard nebula in the other image has stars which are a world away. A much improved result although I think a new mount as previously mentioned will soon be in the offing. The amount of free movement is just too significant that I am not happy with it.

Re the wizard, this is 100 minutes using the 224mc "uncooled" (forgot to turn cooler on) + ZWO Dual band filter. 600x 10 seconds at 200 gain. 30 flats/darkflats 64 darks.

Quite pleased with the result for uncooled, I might be able to get a little better but will leave it has it is for now. 

7 hours ago, IB20 said:

A nice image of Jupiter’s ring here. 😃

Very nice indeed, here it is again taken with a different camera I guess.

Image Galleries Webb/NASA