CraigT82

Ahhh THAT’S what that little ring is! I picked that out the box and wondered what it was for, didn’t click at all. Thanks for telling me! Oh well at least I have another one coming that I can use on the guide camera then and get rid of the 1.25” nosepiece on that.

Those are both really nice images, good work! Both planets show a bit of an edge rind. I find you can mitigate that quite well by using a circular selection tool to select around the edge of the disc, shrink the selection so it’s about 15pixels in wards from the edge of the disc, invert selection and then apply a bit of Gaussian blur.

Thanks both. I did calibrate and integrate in PI (only 15 subs though so 30 mins total) and then did colour calibration and gradient removal, then took it into gimp for stretching, and the stars didn’t look *too* bad (for a first attempt) but there was barely any colour in most of them. Think I might try 60 or 45 seconds next time. I do have an Astronomik L2 filter to go in but just waiting for the right adaptor to arrive so I can screw it into the camera. Just had to try it all out last night filterless as the camera, EAF and ASIAir all arrived in the morning and it was clear by nightfall so just went for it.

If it’s all one direction and even across the frame then could be differential flexure in guide scope, or focuser sag something like that .

I captured some subs of the double cluster last night and just getting round to looking at them. I think I’ve blown out the stars but as a bit of a newbie to DSO imaging I’m not totally sure how to tell. Opening up a single raw frame in gimp and using the colour picker tool to hover over the brighter stars in the image the values are maxed out (255,255,255 - 65535 pixel value) so I’m guessing I’ve overcooked the exposures and nothing can save these stars. For info I’m it was shot at 102mm aperture f5.6, 120 second exposures at 100 gain. ASI533mc and no filter at all. Really want to take nice images of stars - GCs , OCs, asterisms etc…. Any help gratefully received!

These are incredible I honestly never in a million years thought you could get these results with a phone…. And all processed on a phone too! Fantastic work Peter!

I have my scope cover over the battery, PSU and extension lead just for a bit of protection. Hopefully it’s not flammable (but it’s from AliExpress so you just know it is! 😆) All set up and dialled in, now shooting 120s lights on the double cluster. Stars are a bit bloated as I don’t have a UV/IR cut filter in there yet, that’s on its way from FLO. Just a testing evening really. Average star size is 2.48 (3.36”) The adjustable Starfield flatter made it an absolute doddle to dial in the backfocus. Literally a 30 second job. Must say this ASIair is one nifty piece of kit! This is so much easier than the last time I tried DSO imaging during covid, with an 8” f6 newt on an old black EQ6 an a Atik 383L mono, and everything connected via an umbilical cord of cables to a laptop on a little table beside the scope.

Got all the red goodies fitted and think the cables are ok, not sure really, will need to babysit it for the first few flips! Forecast is saying I might get a couple of clear hours later to test it out but it’s not looking promising at the minute.

Nice little haul from FLO today, all going on the Starfield 102.

Yeah go on then… always nice to play around with other peoples data!

Very nice image indeed. I agree with Kostas a white balance and a touch bit of wavelets and / or LR Deconv in Astrosurface could really make it pop.

Hope so. Selling things was never one of their strong points!

That’s very nice indeed, pretty much got all the details and features present in images from much larger scopes, just at a smaller image size. I can see some atmospheric dispersion, did you do an RGB align in processing at any point? Might make it a bit sharper if you do.

Yeah same for me. I was thinking it would be nice to get 12” aperture in a more compact and lighter package than my newt…. But then I look at the specs and nope, it’s still 25kg! Shorter than the newt though so that’s something. Does look awesome though.

Yeah for indoors I’d just throw a blanket over it to keep the dust off. Shouldn’t be any risk of condensation being inside in the heated house

Very nice and clean captures there Simon, lovely work 👍🏼

Thanks, this is what I expected to do when I first got it in my hands but I can’t get it to budge and don’t want to force it, do you know if it turns clockwise or anti clockwise from the point of view of the camera?

Lovely stuff!

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X24004230

That is a very nice image, the colours and banding on the globe are great

Thanks but that's not it, that person was having trouble attaching the flattener to the drawtube, not actually adjusting the backfocus adjuster on the flattener itself. I've got it screwed to the drawtube ok, just cant figure out how to make the extension adjustments to the flattener

I *think* you unscrew the rearmost threaded ring to the point you need, then tighten down the three grub screws circled in blue to set it - can anyone confirm?

This image was after the incident. Yes to say I'm gutted is an understatement!!!

I've just taken delivery of this and it's supposed to have 13mm adjustment travel for the backspacing but it didn't come with any instructions, does anyone know how to adjust it? There is a larger silver thumbscrew and a small philips head screw but not sure what each does. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/starfield-telescopes/starfield-08x-adjustable-reducer-flattener-for-90102mm-refractors.html