PhotoGav

Just got home from an excellent day at the show. Thoroughly enjoyed catching up with the lovely folk of FLO/IKI. I took in three fascinating talks, drooled over huge apertures and managed to limit my show spend to just one Moon Filter. Though there are various purchases that have taken a step closer to the Buy Button! To all those going tomorrow, have a great time!

Good folk of SGL, I am looking into the possibility of observing and imaging in Malaysia and want to hear anyone's experiences of conditions out there in the southern tip of Malaysia, near to Singapore. Now, I am well aware that it is probably not the perfect place to look skywards, but want to get an idea of just how 'bad' it really is out there. Is the light pollution shocking and is it a constantly totally humid and dense atmosphere?! All thoughts and comments most welcome. Thanks, Gav.

Aw, that's a shame. Have a good time there - don't spend too much!!

Which day are you there, Helen? I'm going tomorrow. Would be lovely to catch up. Here's a pic of me... (I'm the one on the left!!). Gav.

Quick snap of tonight’s Full Moon with iPhone 7 through Celestron NexStar 8SE with 20mm eyepiece (I think). I used a NexYZ gizmo. I had a group of nine GCSE Astronomy students up at the Observatory making drawings of the Moon, but they preferred using the gizmo with their phones! This image has a touch of the Impressionists about it!

Few shots from today - fast moving, but passing, cloud in Wiltshire and very windy, which didn't help keep things steady. However, the excitement from the group of 20 Astronomy GCSE students that were huddled around the computer attached to the camera on the back of a Celestron 8" with white light filter, waiting for first contact to be evident was superb. Thankfully the cloud passed just in time for us to see both first and second contact. Second contact through 8" timed at 12:37:26 GMT. My best estimate of first contact is 12:35:51 GMT. A while later through the 8" at 13:33:22 GMT And a shot through the 10" refractor with white light filter at 13:49:10 GMT

@Davey-T - I will be setting up at the Marlborough College Observatory, which has much clearer horizons than my garden. Fingers crossed for clear sky to get some pics and hopefully a healthy stream of pupils and staff through to look at the tiny disk of Mercury against the huge Sun. We can dream....!

Testing, testing... the forecast looks increasingly optimistic here in Wiltshire. Fingers crossed!

How much of the 8GB RAM is made available to Photoshop? There is an option in PS Preferences to assign RAM to the application. Have a quick check in there. Might be a total red herring, but worth a look...

Rodd, if you want to make the subs and calibration files available through Dropbox I would happily run it all through my stacking processes in APP and see what comes out.

Indeed, I saw that and thought, damn, really should have shot some Ha!!! Good luck with the continuing collection.

Thanks Rodd. I always thought I should shoot some Ha for this one... never did, so far. Good luck with your project - lucky you for having clear skies, Moon or no Moon, pouring here, again 😕

The reality of it when the Dutch Reflector Lovers abuse starts to pour in to Les Granges - the last reported sighting of the Penrice..... [Edit] meant to add - well done on getting the article printed again! I enjoyed it the first time, though I do think I'd struggle with it in Dutch!

Thank you Robin, good tips. Should save valuable sky time!

Excellent, thank you Robin. The journey has begun! I will play with exposure times and focus when I next get the chance. No doubt plenty more questions to come!

Thank you! My research let me to believe that the dip in the 5750 A area was due to the OSC camera - thank you for confirming and interesting that it is a hump not a dip! My mono camera will be given an outing next time - I just wanted some pretty colours on my first play!!

Thank you Andrew. Yes, there do seem to be some artefacts introduced from the rotation. I will definitely be spending more time on the grating alignment before hitting the record button! I just need some clear sky time to have my next play...

Thank you @Craney - yes, I've spent some time on the rspec-astro website, watching videos and I downloaded the trial version of the software. Gave it a try as well as the BASS software. I feel like I am just at the very foothills of the spectral analysis learning curve!

Yes, I took the plunge and bought a Star Analyser 100. My first experiments have been with a SkyWatcher 200 PDS on an HEQ5 mount with a ZWO ASI 120MC-S. I removed the IR filter from in front of the chip on the camera, fitted the SA100 and pointed the scope at Vega and this is what I got: Well, in reality, I got a slightly slanted image, but I have rotated and cropped it in Photoshop for the purposes of display. I shot a .ser video and exported about twenty individual frames from the video. I took them into BASS and stacked them. I then rotated the resulting image to make it horizontal, calibrated with the zero order and what I hope is the hydrogen beta dip. I then guessed a bit and annotated the graph with elements that match the wavelengths of the dips. Here is the output: How far off the mark is this?! It seems a bit random and very much guesswork with regards to matching dips to elements. Anyway, I'm delighted to have got something that looks like a spectrum. My next step will be to use a mono camera and to get the SA100 aligned so that the spectrum is recorded in the horizontal position. I will then see what BASS makes of that. Any advice or thoughts on what I have so far would be greatly appreciated. My ultimate goal is to estimate spectral class of a range of stars. My method will be to compare with reference spectra of known star types and use the 'best fit'. Is that a valid approach? Thanks, Gav.

Love it!

And it will freeze... my dehumidifier drainage tube is not nearly as beautiful as yours, it’s just a bit of clear flexible plastic, does the job though! When it gets a frozen lump in its end, I just pour a bit of warm/hot kettle water over it, problem solved and free flowing drainage again. Wouldn’t be much use if it wasn’t in my garden though...

I know this might be controversial and has been discussed briefly before, but... what about finding a new location that is not next to a flood hazard.... I’ll get my coat........ 😮

Oh drat... that is a huge disappointment, but after being more than mildly panicky last year about flooding, I'm so not surprised with all this recent weather. Here's to a substitute event very soon. Should the star party revert to a springtime event? Thanks to all the organisers and for the early cancellation.

That’ll never happen... Tich is next door to you!! Hopefully I’ll make it from Oaks to Kingfisher to visit!

I won’t know where I am when I wake up, step out and Davey-T isn’t opposite me.....??!!