tooth_dr

1 hour ago, Wiu-Wiu said:

A cam 25 miles away would have the meteor in a different place than you have. 

 

My guess is also a flare (or better: two). Typically, those would not be visible 25 miles away, as a flare is a very local event. 

It isnt in the same place, the gif is a bit misleading as the meteor is still visible from the bottom layer when the meteor cloud appears. 

What would be a suitable single replacement for a dual ED80/CCD setup up?

Would an equally ‘fast’ system be available, that could replace the above in a single scope.

Im now starting to look at autofocusers etc and although I have no issues with two scopes so far, I often wonder would a single scope be handier and lighter on my EQ6.  Focal length I was thinking of between 500-850mm.

I have a full set of both 1.25” and 2” LRGBHaOiiiSii filters.  Currently using 2 x KAF-8300 CCDs.

I would be thinking of selling some kit off and adding some money to it.

Any suggestions welcome.

34 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

It's not the domes per se, it is the fact that they have thin uninsulated glass fibre skins. I run a desiccant de-humidifier in mine to completely alleviate the problem.

This one has insulation fitted inside the dome, I believe to alleviate the dripping. I will be running a dehumidifier but I am debating whether or not to remove the insulation. 

1 minute ago, DAVE AMENDALL said:

Possibly the main benefits you will experience apart from permanent set up is freedom from stray light and wind. I gave my ROR to a friend when I got my dome. I would love to see some pics posted when you have assembled it and up and running.  May it give you many happy hours...............Dave

Cheers Dave!  The wind protection is the main one for me.

6 hours ago, JamesF said:

Some of them look an awful lot like aircraft trails to me.  Are you near a flight path at all?  They can sometimes "flare" a bit, though I suspect that's unlikely at the times your images were taken.

I've found flightradar24.com quite useful for eliminating aircraft since I discovered that it's possible to go back in time, though I don't think they show (all) military aircraft.  We get quite a few of the latter around here, sometimes playing stupid games.

James

I do get occasional planes but I’m not on a flight path.  I would typically see planes heading to America.

I seen another suspected meteor dispersion cloud picked up in the other camera 12 minutes earlier as well, but I didn’t pick up a meteors or cloud in my camera. This also made me suspicious 

The above images were taken at 23:47 on Sept 7th.

12 hours ago, DAVE AMENDALL said:

I can see that's going to be a great observatory once assembled. It seems to be a later model and much improved. This will probably be the best piece of kit you will buy and you will love it. My 2.2 metre obsy is a different make but I have no regrets purchasing it and would hate to be without it . It has been operational for three years now...Dave

Thanks Dave.  It's about 4 years old, and came with all the gubbings I wanted.  I hope it will be a significant improvement over my ROR shed (which is being recycled into a playhouse for my kids)

So I've come back to this and I would like to present some more evidence to the experts!

Firstly I combined the two frames, to create a single image - the meteor/flares must have occured at the end and beginning of 45s exposures.

Next I located data from another all sky camera approx 25 miles away, corresponding to the same time as my capture.

I then rotated and overlaid the data above with my data.  There is a little cloud that isnt present on either frame either side of the above image.  It appears to line up with my meteor capture.  I wonder could this be meteor dispersion, and thus confirm it was a meteor?

2 hours ago, johninderby said:

Now round concrete base, square or octagonal? 

Bump outs for possible future bays?

 

The site I have planned for it is on a corner with kerbing so base will be dictated by that to some extent. 

2 hours ago, Davey-T said:

Depends how " pretty " you want it to look and if there's a clerk of works, AKA wife overseeing it 😂

Dave

Dave - it’s going to have to be neat 😂

4 minutes ago, upahill said:

Congrats, that looks so much more manageable in sections! The design has really improved I think.

Bet you can't wait to get in it

 

I am indeed!  I havent actually seen it yet either, so cant wait to get home from work.

16 minutes ago, Alan White said:

@tooth_dr was that First Class delivery?

Looks wonderful, good luck with the base build and assembly.
 

Thanks Alan    I was very fortunate in that the fella I purchased the dome off runs his own company, and delivered it for me in one of his vans.

13 minutes ago, johninderby said:

So ot’s off to the local hire place for a concrete mixer and whacker and order the sand and stone.? 😁

 

Absolutely - spade at the ready.  I had planned to dig it out, pour it up, wiring, etc over the next few months, in time to buy a new dome in Spring/Summer, but when this used one came up I couldnt not buy it.   It's the updated version, with the motorised dome rotation and motorised shutter kit.  There arent any bays, but I'll see how I get on without them.  Mightnt need them.

Today the ‘postman’ delivered this 💫💫

I need to dig out a base and get the concrete in before the weather changes. 

Delicate and beautifully processed.  What an image. 

14 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

Great news - you are in for a treat! A couple of pointers:-

1. Concentrate on getting the base of the dome and the top of the walls flat where each section butts up to the next as this will ensure smooth rotation.

2. Don't rely purely on the pre-drilled holes - file any out that impede 1. above - To be fair, my bolt holes were very well aligned straight from the factory

3. Spend plenty of time ensuring that the north-south diameter matches perfectly the east-west diameter on the walls before you bolt it down to the plinth.

Thanks Steve that’s excellent advice to prevent any distortion for the dome itself to move better.

Despite the appearance, it’s actually second hand. He cleaned it up, removing all traces of silicone etc. I just need to find out what would be the best silicone to seal it with now. 

27 minutes ago, paul mc c said:

Nice one....a proper obsy,maybe one day i will have one.

Thanks Paul. I was very fortunate in that this one turned up for sale locally. 

2 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

Ooooohh, how very exciting!!

It attived today

I liked the first two, but the third version looks pretty awesome!  Amazing.

Fantastic image Steve, pretty much echoing everyone elses comments.  I like both versions, with tendency for more subtle verions myself also.

Thanks a lot guys. I am working backwards here as already have the 14”. Now looking to showcase images live via some sort of screen. 

You can load the normal raw data into APP and select the H-alpha setting and it will do all this automatically and produce a stack from the red channel only 

1 hour ago, Thalestris24 said:

Hi again

Thinking a bit left field, an alternative might be to skip the big Meade itself and just attach a small, lightweight, fast F4 scope e.g something like the Altair 60mm, in place of the finder - I'm not sure what's possible here? If you could do that, you could image with a high qe guidecam e.g. gpcam2 or something like a 183 sensor with SharpCap Pro live stacking. Or even a Revolution 2 video imager (see on YouTube, e.g.

Without a wedge, though, you will be limited in terms of exposure times but I think the above should enable you to get some ok images. Dark skies always helpful...

Louise

Hi Louise.

Thanks for the replies. Yes there is wedge for it too.

This was a thought that occurred to me also, using a smaller faster scope, but this would need to be explored.

What would be an alternate ‘big scope’ instead of the 14” SCT? Something like a big refractor?

@vlaiv thanks for that reply. This is the scope 

https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/meade-lx600-acf-14-f8-goto-telescope.html

6 hours ago, Xiga said:

That's really lovely Adam. Nice and bright & vibrant, which i like very much! I probably would have left a tad more green in there myself, but i know Green is almost a dirty word in AP 😁 so it's totally a personal preference decision and nothing more. 

Thanks Ciaran! You know it was actually more green, which I quite liked, but I succumbed to peer pressure and ran HLVG on it and then blended it to 70% 😂 

7 hours ago, Starwiz said:

Lovely images!

What do you do to control the stars when processing?  Mine turn out a horrible magenta for the Hubble Palette unless I spend a lot of time trying to remove them.

John

Thanks John

This is the first time I removed the stars from the images Ha Sii and Oiii. I then combined them as usual and finally added in the stars at the end again.  Otherwise I get magenta stars too. I bought Straton this time instead of doing it manually and it made all the different. I tried Starnet++ but I couldn’t get it to open up. At £14odd it’s not expensive.

Hope that helps

Adam. 

3 minutes ago, mackiedlm said:

Well good luck with it. I'll keep my eyes open for notice about it because I'm up that way sometimes.

I was helping out with some of the tourism shots this evening. The weather didn’t cooperate completely but stayed dry for bit.

On 24/09/2019 at 20:25, mackiedlm said:

That's a super picture. The stones ad something unusual. Where about are these DS sites? I'm in the South and planning to visit the Mayo Dark Sky Park this winter.

This is in mid-ulster. The actual observatory opens spring 2020.  Should be great!