bomberbaz

1 hour ago, catburglar said:

I think the eVScope offers a bit more than this for some users. The ‘Citizen Science’ angle allows relatively easy entry into asteroid occultations, rotation light curves and exoplanet transits. 
 These things might be interesting projects for some and there was talk of allowing users to do some analysis of their own data rather than simply contributing data to the ‘professionals’ for analysis…Don’t know if that’s come to pass yet.

But I’d agree the price is a bit steep, and if you’re prepared to do a bit of the legwork yourself there’s nothing here that couldn’t be achieved in a more hands on/interactive way.

I think there are some very interesting aspects of it which do appeal to me other than my fandom of ingenuity and geekiness. The citizen science aspect is of some interest to me ( I admit I haven't really looked into that aspect in detail yet).

My levels of understanding of science related matters, particularly physics has and indeed is still growing steadily boosted by my involvement with astronomy. Mainly via youtube and science documentaries from streaming sites. (There are plenty)

Something which allowed a more interactive experience could be of interest to a guy who is rapidly approaching that time of life when one has more time on their hands. 

I do agree with other contributors in that this is not a replacement for "at the eyepiece" astronomy but it is imho simply a different way of revealing the wonders of our universe. It compliments existing methods, don't look upon it as a replacement. 

Lets be fair, a single piece of kit that can be shifted hand held, involve up to 10 people including yourself and show more detail than you can ever hope to achieve in the traditional fashion is no mean feat. It has it's place. 

I have read a lot of reviews and other info about this and if like me you are into technology, you cannot fail but be impressed by it's versatility, ingenuity and general geek appeal.

I could quite easily be tempted into buying one of these for all the reasons above. However I worry that all of a sudden my other gear becomes surplus to requirements and I really don't like the idea that something so good could turn out to be so cruel.

That said, there would be some happy people looking through the for sale section on here. 😄

Has anybody come across one of these yet?

Unistellar eVscope 2 Smart Telescope with 7.7Mpixel Electronic Eyepiece by Nikon with BACKPACK - Rother Valley Optics Ltd

The previous version had only visual access by connecting with a phone/tablet or other smart device.

This version goes a step further by having a digital EP to enhance vision by Nikon (Quality goods usually) which has an optical native view at x 50 but you can digitally zoom up to x400 (x150 max recommended)

Think this would be a brilliant outreach bit of kit although somewhat expensive. Also seems it also works for light polluted areas so maybe this has found a niche in the market for city dwellers!

13 minutes ago, herne said:

I’d say that’s definitely better than your previous picture - you’ve brought out more of the surrounding nebulosity and there is a better overall colour calibration 👍.

Additional integration time will of course be useful but there’s a marked difference already between your two pictures and you’re on the right track 😀.

Thanks, thinking back I overused background equalisation tools using py-astro, this clears gradiant but if over done kills nebulosity too. 

Less is more is certainly the key on nebula. 

That said, I think I really like SiriL, just started going through user guide but I think I pretty much get what the automated process was doing that you put up, cheers

steve

21 minutes ago, Priesters said:

It’s actually the Starizona Evo FF2 which is meant to be just a field flattener but as you’ve noticed there is definitely a reduction factor involved.  I measured it a while back at approx 0.9.  It has 55mm back focus too which has meant I can add a filter drawer and rotator in the train.  Your Crescent is very nice btw - you may still be learning but your processing is still several steps ahead of mine 😀

I think I may lay out for one of those, the addition of the filter drawer and reduction factor are both attractive options. Can you send me a pic of the focal train please

cheers

steve

Hello all. Well managed to grab another 30 minutes data last night and the difference was very noticeable in both terms of star shape and more over, the end result.

The tracking seemed to be behaving itself much better last night but I just wish i would learn to leave well alone, haha.

Anyway, I did push the data through SiriL first and then had a tinker in Gimp after that and end result is below.

I am still learning a lot and when I have the patience to sit down and learn it some more no doubt results will get a little better.

8 hours ago, Priesters said:

At the caravan in the Lake District at the mo.  Having another go at the veil and going ok so far by my standards 🤞

Are you using a reducer, I can only just fit the veil into my view field, just. 

Got my 30 minutes worth on the crescent, tracking improved for sure.

Just trying to grab some additional M31 data when power pack gave out, dohhhhh 😅

Hoping to get a half hours worth of imaging tonight after tinkering and tightening everything up on the rig. 

Hopefully it has improved but just going to try adding another 30 minutes to my crescent data. 

Sky looking reasonable and cloud clearing nicely.

Thanks @herne for that, I shall give that a go later on to see how I get on. 

I still intend reading this too as it should hopefully give me a better understanding of what is actually happening Siril - Manual pre-processing

However in the interim your walkthrough will come in very handy. 👌

11 hours ago, herne said:

I had a quick play.  There's some decent data in there, not only of the Crescent Nebula but also of other surrounding nebulosity 👍.

Below are two pictures.  The first is a simple process of your raw tiff file using Siril only.  The second is taking that file processed in Siril and running it through Photoshop with some basic curves and a little gausian blur to help with some of the aberration.  It's still a bit noisy which with some extra time I could reduce and perhaps make some other improvements too, but hopefully you get the idea.

Some stars do still seem to be a little misshapen, although only really noticeable if you zoom right in.  But overall you've got some good data in there, perhaps more than you may realise 🙂.

 

 

I have heard nothing but good things about SIRIL.

And I do have Siril, I also have the webpage which walks you through it's use.

So I think given what you have shown me with it's use it's about time I learned how to use it 😅.

12 minutes ago, herne said:

I had a quick play.  There's some decent data in there, not only of the Crescent Nebula but also of other surrounding nebulosity 👍.

Below are two pictures.  The first is a simple process of your raw tiff file using Siril only.  The second is taking that file processed in Siril and running it through Photoshop with some basic curves and a little gausian blur to help with some of the aberration.  It's still a bit noisy which with some extra time I could reduce and perhaps make some other improvements too, but hopefully you get the idea.

Some stars do still seem to be a little misshapen, although only really noticeable if you zoom right in.  But overall you've got some good data in there, perhaps more than you may realise 🙂.

 

 

I think that maybe I need more processing assistance if I am honest. And I also think your right in that perhaps my data is better than I am thinking it it. (I do tend to be too personal critical)

For sure there is room for improvement, as there always is, but maybe not to the level I am thinking. 

thanks all

Steve

3 hours ago, herne said:

I'm by no means an expert but if it helps upload your stacked data and I'll have a quick play?   You may be right of course and it won't do anything but sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can help?

Be my guest, I take it you meant the autosave from DSS which includes the calibration files. If not I will attach a copy without calibration files. Also it is actually 60mins data, not 40 as I first thought. (I was very tired)

Autosave.tif

37 minutes ago, herne said:

To my eye there seems to be more of an issue with star colour (aberration) rather than shape.  That colour issue may make things look like stars are slightly mis-shaped. 

Take a look at the screen grab below of a zoomed in portion of your picture.  I've circled a few to demonstrate - they start dark going into red at the top, leading into an aqua to yellow at the bottom.  That gives them a slightly flattened look (elongated?) although I think the overall star shape is still pretty round.  I get a similar issue which I process out in Photoshop.  If you use PS flick to minute 41 of this YouTube video to get an idea of how to correct (the whole video is worth watching tbh).

I get what your saying but it the mis-shape seems to follow the RA axis and given the slight movement in that axis it gives me that hunch.

The last readings were in DEC around 0.8 but RA 2.5, this after spending a long time sitting and staring into my phone at the tracking error and tweaking away.

Thanks for the advice though. I will bear this in mind after my next data grab, hoping to get another hour or so data again on the crescent and will see how that data looks.

15 minutes ago, herne said:

Further to my 10min sub experiment of the Sadr region (here a few pages back) I was out again photographing Sadr the other night, but this time using 2 min subs (about 3 hours worth).  See below - it's a quick and dirty stretch in Photoshop, nothing more.

This is without calibration frames or any sort of noise reduction in post processing, unless Deep Sky Stacker did something during stacking.  I like both images and am really impressed at how clean they look given the lack of calibration frames, although I prefer this one with the 2 min subs as I think the stars seem less bloated.  It's been an interesting experiment and am super happy with how the new camera (ASI 533MC Pro) and AZ GTi have performed.

I will spend some time properly processing the image at some point.

corking effort that to say it's largely unprocessed

1 hour ago, AstroNebulee said:

I had some backlash in my RA so I meshed the two brass gears together on the RA motor and solved the backlash and may help your issue too. 

I followed Cuivs video, my post is on page 38 on this thread. 

Also this on cloudy nights helped me to https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/668785-adjusting-backlash-on-skywatcher-az-gti-mount/

Cheers 

Lee 

Can't do this Lee, I have already seen this but when I tried to undo the screw marked 2, the screw head sheared off.

I am going to see how I get on with things as they are but if the star shapes are unfixable I have to decide do I put up with it or buy a new mount and use the existing one for solar.

1 hour ago, bomberbaz said:

I have around 1 mm of free play in RA axis, I am going to pull my mount apart and see if there is anything I can do to take this up.

I did this a few years back but one of the adjustment screws broke so stuck a spring in to take up the slack, I don't think it is cutting it. 

Further to this I have had it apart and back together, I have also retightened every single clamp bolt etc to take any other flexture out of the system.

Now it does seem a little tighter but not significantly so. Looking at it most of the movement is coming from the RA/AZ axis of the mount with a smaller movement coming through the tripod and wedge.

I know there is a mod to take that mount movement out but as mentioned the one of the screws broke so I cannot do this, so there is a spring inserted between the house and RA/AZ motor to try to take some of it up.

Think I need to test it again to see if the slight elongation of the stars has been improved upon. To see what I am referring to you can zoom in on this picture below, not massive but there.

I have around 1 mm of free play in RA axis, I am going to pull my mount apart and see if there is anything I can do to take this up.

I did this a few years back but one of the adjustment screws broke so stuck a spring in to take up the slack, I don't think it is cutting it. 

Ok so tracking in RA is not what it should be and I am attributing at least some of that to the SW wedge. From all I have read and heard the WO version is much better, I am therefore upgrading to the WO version. 

Now a QUESTION. How much free play does anyone have in the AZ/RA axis please, I have some free play and a little here and there all affects results. I am also concerned this may be affecting tracking a little. 

Thanks all

Steve

3 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Hi Steve 

At least you got out gathering data last night 😊. 

Do you want this post to be moved to the az gti owners thread instead of here? 

Is your horizon 60 Ed a no go on your AzGti now, seeing as your back with the trusty evoguide 50ed 👍

It's a nice image for the amount of data you've gathered and as you said you can always grab more the next time and build on it, the star colours are nice. 

The WO is much studier and hefty for mounting the az gti and you'll see vast improvements if you can get one and be nicely paired with your sturdy tripod too. 

Lee 

Just realised this is in wrong thread, please can a mod move it to the AZ Gti owners thread please.

Nice image that, also welcome to the AZ-GTi EQ clan, we are secretly taking over the world of imaging, one wedge at a time. 

upped the gradiant levelling tool parameters.

Hi everyone. Last night I stayed up late gathering data and I have defaulted back to my evoguide. My tracking is about bob on in dec but RA persists in being a little awkward to control. It is getting better but given how good the skies and conditions were last night, I would have hoped for a little better. I am not sure if some of this is down to the mount stability overall. The star adventurer wedge is not the best at all and I am sat wondering whether I might be better looking out for a WO wedge, they just look much more substantial.

Anyway, I only had a limited amount of time to work with and so didn't get a ton of data, I hope to add to both of the subjects I took data of last night later down the line. 

So the one I have had time to do a half decent process of with limited (40 minutes) of data is the crescent. TBH I think even now I have overdone the stretching a little, had to round some of the larger stars with py-astro but this is a big improvement from where I was a week or so back when I could have thrown the entire rig into the bin at one point. 

cheers all

steve

With your scope being F10, most eyepieces will give you a pretty small exit pupil.  If you do wear glasses, then you may get away with not needing them. I personally find that once under a 3mm exit pupil I can remove my glasses and view without.

The 8mm you just purchased is going to be useable on good nights with a steady sky for your planetary and lunar viewing. Nearly always good for lunar but maybe not always so on the planets.

I would suggest something in the 14-12mm range will cover your planetary viewing and also smaller DSO such as planetary nebula on a more regular basis. Exp Scientific 14mm/62 degree would be a good starting point but a step up in price.

Now you want to move into DSO hunting, a lot (not all) of DSO respond well to a larger exit pupil (light gathering) and to that end a 32 or even 40mm plossl would be advantageous. to that end you have a message from me. 

HTH

Steve

Interesting video regarding data transfer rates of the JWST, Hubble and V1 here. It goes some way to explain the readouts received as shown from the link in my opening post.