johnturley

The results from Astronomy Tools comes up with might be meaningful for Deep Sky imaging, but they are a nonsense when it comes to Planetary Imaging. Rather than using a Barlow with my Esprit 150, it suggests that under OK Seeing Conditions I should actually be using a Focal Reducer with my ZWO ASI 462 Planetary Camera (pixel size 2.9 um) John

Excellent Kon, lots of detail in the Mare Erythraeum area, and the North Polar Hood showing really well. When you say resized 120%, what software did you use John

I agree, there seems to be a general taboo these days against eyepiece projection, although it was quite commonly used before the advent of dedicated planetary cameras with their small sized sensors compared to DSLR's. There was a post on 'Cloudy Nights' recently where someone posted some quite good images using eyepiece projection with a Baader Mark IV 8-245 mm zoom eyepiece set at 8mm, and a Takahashi 100 DZ telescope. In my opinion the image size using a 2x Barlow with your setup, would have been too small to be able to obtain a decent array of alignment points in Registax or Autostakkert. John

Nice capture, and North Polar Hood showing up very well. John

Astronomical Equipment, Luton (not Astro Systems), used to produce Dall-Kirkham Reflectors with optical windows in the 1970's (see attached images), would be interesting to know how many of these they produced, and how many are still in use. They claimed that these instruments would perform similar to a refractor of the same aperture, maybe a bit optimistic, or maybe not if you compare them to the refractors that were available at the time. John

I understand that using a manual dob makes planetary imaging more difficult, but several observers such as Kon (see his recent Mars posting taken using a manual dob), produce some excellent results using these sort of set ups. John

Don't worry about possibly over-sampling with your proposed set up. Geoff Lewis regularly uses f22 - f24 with his C14 and ASI 462, and gets good results. John

I generally use a 2.5x Powermate with my Esprit 150 (f7) and ZWO ASI 462 camera, which gives f17.5 and effective fl of 2650mm, I tried a 5x Powermate, but the results were not that great, although it might work ok on Mars under very good atmospheric conditions. With your f4.6 VX14 (fl 1600 mm), a 2.5x Powermate would give f11.5 (which incidentally is supposed to be close to the optimum for the ASI 462), and effective fl of 4,000 mm. I gather however that you were thinking of the ASI 678, which has a larger 1 /1.8 " format, so the image size would be similar to what I get with the Esprit 150 and ASI 462 with its smaller 1/2.8" format, so no a 2.5x Powermate would not be too powerful. John

1.25 in filters should be fine for up to 4/3" sized sensors, but 2 in for larger sizes. If you are imaging planets you don't need a 2" Powermate, not only do these cost more, but they also add significant extra weight to the system which can result in balance issues. Most ZWO Cameras (up to 4/3 " format) have a T thread, and come with a T thread to 1.25 in nosepiece, which is threaded for 1.25" filters. Most observers recommend using an IR/UV cut filter for imaging planets such as the Baader one below, although cheaper brands are available. Baader CMOS Optimised UV/IR Cut and L Filter | First Light Optics Hope this helps.

With the sensor size of the ASI 678 you don't need 2in filters, 1.25" is fine. If you were to use a camera with a full frame sensor you would need 2 in filters. John

If imakebeer used prime focus with his SkyWatcher 900mm/70mm refractor and Canon EOS 450D, the image scale would be tiny, eyepiece projection is usually required with digital SLR's to get a decent image size on planets. John

I agree with you Geoff, imaging at the supposed optical focal ratio often results in far too small am image, which makes it more difficult to focus on the laptop screen, and to set align points in Registax or AutoStakkert. John

No, you wouldn't see the moon after that time, it's just that the constellation Sagittarius in which the richest part of the Milky Way is situated, would also have set. The best time of year to see the Milky Way from Moroccan latitudes would be late summer/early autumn, having said that the 3-day old crescent moon might not interfere too much with the view on the 26th November in particular. John

The richest part of the Milky Way lies in the constellation Sagittarius (which can't be well seen from U.K. latitudes), unfortunately the waxing crescent moon would be in the region of the sky on 26/27 November. John

I agree, I find Sharpcap more user friendly than the ZWO ASI software. Sharpcap is available for free download (currently on version 4.0), and there are quite a few good videos on YouTube regarding how to use it. John

That's interesting Lee that you get good results with the ASI 462 at f21-25, I usually use a 2.5 x Powermate which gives f17.5 when imaging planets through my Esprit 150 with my ASI 462, which gives reasonably good results. However, some people suggested that I should be aiming for just 3x the pixel size of the ASI 462, which would be around f9, but with the focal length of the Esprit being just 1050 mm, f9 would result in too small an image size, and led me to believe that the ASI 462 was not the ideal camera to use with the Esprit 150, and that I would have got better results with the cheaper ASI 224, with its larger pixel size, tempting me to buy one of these. John

Neptune is currently magnitude 7.8, so you require binoculars or a small telescope to see it. It is situated in Aquarius so from Australia it will be high up in the northern sky mid evening, transiting at around 9 pm local time. John

North Polar Hood showing very nicely John

The weather forecast for this morning's partial solar eclipse was not great, but unexpectedly the clouds cleared just after the eclipse began, so ended up with quite a good view, although there was intermittent cloud from time to time. Photo was taken through my Esprit 150 with a Canon 6D digital SLR, and using a Seymour Solar Filter. John

Well try it, but I think you will find that the image size will be extremely small with the size of sensor you get with most digital SLR's, and I don't think that many (if any) allow you to crop the capture area so as to enlarge the image scale, I can't with my Canon 6D. John

If you want to take photographs of planets with a digital SLR you will need to use eyepiece projection, otherwise the image scale even if using a barlow lens will be far too small. You can use either an eyepiece projection tube, or an adaptor available from Baader which fits their Hyperion and Morpheus range of eyepieces. Attached is a photo of Mars I took in September 2020 using a Canon 6D digital SLR attached to my 14in Newtonian, and using eyepiece projection with a 9.7 mm Plossl eyepiece. Not too bad maybe, but nothing like as good as can be achieved with a dedicated planetary camera. John

Very good for a first attempt, shows Syrtis Major quite nicely. John

This reminds me of a rogue airport parking company near Manchester Airport based in Styal Cheshire, and that pose as the Official Airport Parking. There have been numerous complaints about them to Trading Standards (including from me), the police have been involved on a number of occasions, and they have also been featured on Rogue Traders and similar TV programs. They should have been closed down, and their website (which looks like the Official Manchester Airport site) taken down, yet they still continue operate and advertise their services. John

You won't get a field of view any wider than that with a Tele Vue 55mm Plossl at about 1/3 the price of the Masuyama 60mm John

Most observers seem to use a combination of AutoStakkert (for stacking) and Registax (for wavelets) I find that Registax can be very slow during the Aligning and Stacking processes if you have taken an AVI video of around 10 - 20,000 frames, taking up to 20 minutes for each, and that is even with using a laptop with an i7 processor and 16 GB RAM, whereas AutoStakkert does it in about 2-3 minutes for each. John