Luke

Very nice! Still very interesting remains! I hope that's not solar maximum gone already.

Congrats! Very nice piccy. Don't forget us at SGL now that you are famous and hanging out with the kool kats at solarchat!!! The folks there seem very helpful and it's a really interesting site. I was reading a bunch of threads there yesterday.

Hi Lars, Thanks for making GIMP tutorials! I have used Photoshop since 1999 I think (I've got the installer disc for version 5.5 still!) but I am out of work currently and a subscription to Photoshop is hard to justify! So I am switching to GIMP and other free tools, like Blender for 3D, Libre Office for spreadsheets etc. I actually prefer Calc to Excel! It was difficult for me to switch to GIMP at first. I kept pressing Photoshop shortcuts (I am starting to assign the same ones in GIMP) and some things are done differently. But I have to say, so far, I am really impressed. I am no longer capturing my own data and I am just starting to edit Hubble images. GIMP is handling a 7,000 x 7,000 pixels 16-bit file with multiple layers very nicely, on a mid-spec i5 PC (though my recent upgrade from 16 GB to 32 GB of RAM probably doesn't hurt for large images!) I especially like: - The GIMP curves editor - I love how I can make it as large as I like! I always wanted that in Photoshop. - The free plugin G'Mic - https://gmic.eu/ I am only just starting to use the G'Mic plugin so don't know its full power but it looks to have multiple very useful things. I am already using its lovely sharpening tools. I can't wait to explore it some more! Split Details looks interesting - it can break up the details of an image into multiple layers, so you can then easily work on certain aspects of your image in isolation. For my needs, Photoshop seems to be better for non-destructive editing, but that's a nice-to-have for me, not a critical thing. GIMP seems very powerful and I'm starting to feel more at home with it now. I may stick with it even if my financial situation improves!

I've not directly compared them, so take this with a pinch of salt from me, but I started out solar with the Baader film and to me the Herschel wedge gave a better view. Sharper and more contrast. But I have seen plenty of very impressive images done with SCTs and Baader film. Alexandra on this forum won Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2020 Sun Category with her Liquid Sunshine image, done with an 11 inch SCT and Baader film: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-54105085 If you end up viewing or imaging the sun a lot, it could be worth the extra depending on finances. I have used my 1.25 inch Herschel wedge a ton! I am tempted to get some film for my 8 inch SCT.

Yes, we should reply to the WOW! signal! I figure, if they are that advanced that they can whizz over here in their spaceships, they probably are peaceful. Plus, even if they are hostile and come here to wage war, I am sure they will spare all the astronomers!

It looks lovely! Well done!

Hmmm, my view has changed a bit! I was thinking about this earlier having made my post and so I thought I would look up what the law says on it. I was not aware of this British law: https://britastro.org/dark-skies/cfds_advice.php?topic=law Thinking about it, would I be happy if my neighbour was blaring very loud music all day long? No. The noise would be affecting me unfairly. Patience would wear thin! So I suppose excessive lighting that affects your enjoyment of your own garden and a very important hobby is also not a fair situation. Sometimes two things are both valid in their own way, like my neighbours enjoying night lighting in the garden, and we wanting to stargaze, and sometimes those two valid things collide and I suppose my view when I think it through is that I generally believe in people doing what they like so long as it does not adversely affect others. Well here it can and does, and in some ways it is arguably similar to the constant loud music situation. If my neighbours had an issue where I was significantly affecting their enjoyment, I would hope they would let me know as I would want to be a good neighbour and try to fix things if I could and it was a reasonable complaint. In my case the light pollution issue was not that bad, it was a bit of a pain. If it had been really bad, like a floodlight directly lighting up our garden that really affected my stargazing, then I would have talked to my neighbour about it. We do have a bit of a pain of a streetlamp that shines into our garden, though we can sort of work around it. Perhaps we should look into that, we did make some initial enquiries about it with our local council without getting anywhere and did not chase it up further. And maybe we can and should get something done about a strong security light that shines onto a bedroom window. If you have a really bad issue with lighting it must be very frustrating.

Nice! We caught a glimpse of the little spots on Thursday morning, they were possible to miss but revealed some pleasing little detail in an 85mm scope with a Lunt 1.25 inch Hershcel Wedge. And the white areas around the spots were very sweet. It sounds super to have white light bins and I am curious if you would have been able to bag them! They may have been smaller still when you had a crack. They seem to be waving goodbye! Image: NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams.

Good luck with the gear, Ian! There is always something new to learn with astro. Forecast looks very poor this way for the next week!

Our old neighbours, who we really liked and who moved nearby, were into all kinds of little lights in their garden! My view is that it was their garden, they can do what they like with it. Of course I have sympathy with stargazers, but their land is their land, is my view! Fortunately for me, I got mainly interested in solar at the time anyway, so light pollution could not touch me! So I say, if you have awful light pollution, maybe consider a bit of solar, moon and planets. The sun is super special, as it is the only star we can see close up, and outside of solar minimum - which I hope is behind us now!!! - it is incredibly dynamic!

I have used a 6 inch, 8 inch and 11 inch Celestron SCT. For planets, when conditions are good, you will get more detail from the larger aperture scopes. I suspect the sweet spot is the one I have never owned, the 9.25, as the 11 I feel rarely was able to make full use of its aperture on planets in my typical conditions! However, the 9.25 is so much more expensive than the 8! If only it cost 1.25x more! You would get I feel better bang for buck from a newtonian or dob. The best view I have ever had of Jupiter was from a 12" dob. It was miles ahead of anything I have ever seen in the 8 inch SCT. Though I love my 8 inch SCT. It is a very powerful, light yet compact and portable telescope, which is why we kept it over the two others. I think of it as my mini light bucket. The 9.25 might be the best aperture to weight option, but for me the 8 is the best price to aperture option. Those are just my views. I thought the 6 inch was very sweet as well and is probably underestimated. My wife bought the 6 inch and owning a 12" dob at the time, I didn't really understand why she bought it. But after I looked through it, it is a very nice scope and I started to borrow it! The 11 was fab and I only sold it because of the heavy weight.

Review advertorial here!: https://besthonestreviews.com/reviews/en/starscope/epsilon-ad/

Very nice! Some sweet resolution from the 8 inch cat.

Well done getting the three highlights! We got a little clear patch in the morning, thin cloud soon moved in, which I think/hope was reponsible for excessive glare in the eyepiece in h-alpha! I do like that group of small spots! The detail was quite fine but still sweet in our 85mm scope. It was nice to see that fairly large prom in h-alpha!

Lucky you! I got sand dunes. Or maybe it was a closeup of Mars?

Our dob and mounts are in a nice solid little metal shed in the back garden. The 8 inch SCT and our refractors are in a loft space halfway up our stairs, along with eyepieces etc. We also have over a 100 board games in the loft space, which is another passion of ours. I do like keeping most of the astro gear and board games out of sight, as "normal folks" who visit tend to think it's a bit excessive! 🤔

I wish I'd kept my Baader zoom. I prefer my fixed focal length eyepieces usually but sometimes a zoom is just more convenient. I think I will aim to pick up a good zoom again at some point. I have a cheap one and it does get some use, enough to justify a good one in the long term!

I deleted most of my solar and lunar captures after stacking them and checking that they look okay, with a quick stretch and sharpen. I see your point about Mars though! There's always the paint tool, nobody will notice! With solar I was getting so much data that it didn't seem realistic to keep all the movie files in the long run. I recently picked up a 14TB internal drive that should keep me going for a while! Not fancy pants SSD, as it is just for storage. I backup onto an external USB 3 12TB. And I have some smaller drives I take with me out and about, just in case something happens to the two main drives! I do wonder though about storing some stuff online, I think 1TB would do for the most important stuff.

Congrats and nice write-up! My 10 inch dob (GSO) is a really convenient scope. Easy to pop out, no big dew issues with the solid tube. It for me is close to the perfect low-hassle dob. We sold our 16 inch dob, alas, which was very nice optically but I had a nasty knee injury and the thing was so heavy to move around! The 10 is a breeze to move. I still wonder about a 12 or maybe a lighter 14 inch fast Orion Optics UK scope as as compromise between weight and aperture / maybe to pair with a 10 inch. My only gripe with the GSO is that I feel like the optics are not quite as good as the skywatcher dobs I have used. The base itself is sweet.

Thank you everyone for the warm welcome back! SGL is a very special website!

Thanks Mark, those stays at Lucksall were lovely! So many good memories and you were always so kind checking everyone was fine! Our son Matthew is still tiring us out! He saw me playing around with some solar processing yesterday and had a go. I might post up one his later! They are likely to be blue! I hope we can get back to some star parties some time, Sarah keeps saying about going back and of course the horrible virus has not been helping. It would be so lovely to catch up with everyone and to meet new folks too. I wonder if Tich still sells chips and burgers?! 😃 Sarah is definitely not keen on me getting a camera again! I may have to keep playing around with the amazing SDO data! Data courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams.

I don't know much about science of the sun, alas, and I don't fully understand what you are looking for/ what this double beach is, or how to process your cool data! Your anim does look incredible, that motion looks very natural to me, but I am clueless anyhow! Is this any help at all? The frames are about 1 minute apart each, taken from Helioviewer, with minimal processing my end using PIPP and a video editor. Mainly change of gamma to show some detail inside the spot, and of course the false colour. I look forward to seeing more of your amazing work! --- 7th November, 2020 AIA 1700 data Courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams.