CraigT82

Nice work Martyn

I love your scope! Top modding that is 👍👍👍 Nice Jupiter... The image is suffering from atmospheric dispersion so squeezing an ADC in there would give worthwhile benefit I think, if you could? As for the 8 bit captures, this is recommended as offers best frame rates and it's the stacking of thousands of frames that restores the lost bit depth (I'm some way that I don't really understand!)

That's a really nice image, great to see the planet and it's satellites in the wider sky context like that. Very well presented too.

Lovely set of images there, sharp and with really nice colours on the globe. I've also given up now for the exact reason @Nik271 mentions above.

It's quite simple to do a mosaic of 2 or more images. In fact, the best lunar images are mosaics of smaller images stitched together to form one larger image. It is not possible to get as much fine detail in a single full disc image as you can get by shooting small sections of the moon at a time and then stitching them together in post processing.

Nice images there Trevor, I think the IR lum is working well on the detail but is throwing the colour off which is unfortunately the trade off with using this technique on Jupiter. I wonder if you can reduce the opacity of the L channel to compensate whilst maintaining the extra detail? Or indeed using the IR as R like Pete suggests? That's probably best thing to do tbh.

Very nice Simon loads of fine details on show there. Would love to see what good condition would have allowed!

I imagine the time you spent in the pub is the reason why you don't remember the night skies!

Wow that is a pretty dedicated day trip! Our crossing out was quite choppy, not too bad for me though a good few people were filling the sick bags 🤢. Before coming out we did watch a few YT vids of the Scillonian in REALLY choppy seas and prayed we didn't have that kind of ride!

It isn't the easiest place to get to to be honest, for us a 3.5hr drive from Bristol to Penzance and then a 3 hour ferry, would have been quicker to fly to the Greek Islands! Of course there's helicopter and fixed wind flights daily but the luggage limits were stricter and we do not travel light 😂

Haha! Yes good signal everywhere pretty much, apart from the far corners of the islands. If they like beaches and kayaking/snorkling/paddle boarding and that sort of stuff they will love it.

Fantastic for families, we are here with our almost 2 year old and he is as happy as we've ever seen him. I'm sure there are some bits that will be bortle 1, there is one island with only 3 inhabitants so that would be a great place for astro!

Nice shots and a successful first light, Good work 👍

Well what an evening that was. I started out with an observing plan but it went out of the window because I was struggling to identify constellations as there were so many stars. Im not sure it was quite as dark as CO makes out but certainly darker than anywhere I've been so far on the mainland. Even my wife came out to have a look and was stunned with the sheer number of stars visible. Didn't have a star chart and didn't want to use my phone and ruin my dark adaption so I just spent a while scanning around with the bins and just looking up with the old mk1 eyeballs. Great fun! Wished I could have packed my H130p but just not enough room for it. Before going back inside I fired off a 30s exposure using my phone propped up on the doorstep looking towards cygnus...

Very nice first image there, well done 👍

Thanks Stu, might try a little bit of smartphone AP too!

I'm currently on holiday on the Isles of Scilly and I brought 7x50 binos on the off chance of a clear night as I thought there would be dark skies, but didn't think it would be this dark... Forecast is excellent for tonight and I'm really excited to get out there shortly and do some binocular observing. Living in a city and only really ever paying attention to the moons and planets this is something special for me! Report to come later hopefully.

That's a real stunner Neil, top quality work! The full size image is a feast for the eyes just panning around and taking it all in in glorious detail.

Ah ok hopefully you'll get some ideas from there.

Didn't Altair astro confirm the skywatcher motor unit would fit this scope? Perhaps they know of an alternative way to get it on there?

The type and arrangement of the rear and edge supports for any mirror will depend on it's thickness. A full thickness mirror (diameter to thickness ratio of 1:6 or thicker) Will perform well with rudimentary support. Thinner mirrors need more support in the right places. It's no use having people suggest what mirror cell arrangements works for them with their scopes when you have no idea how thick their mirrors are and how they compare to your own mirrors thickness.

Nice family portrait there... Good to see you in this section Mike, hope to see more!

Boatloads of detail there nice work

Could you take the mono but just shoot luminance on as many targets as possible. Then you can add this high quality Lum data to colour captured at home? Not sure if that is a stupid idea 🤷‍♂️

Very nice shot, great first attempt. 👍