PhotoGav

You did well to catch that - it has now been ejected far our into space... shame you didn't do a time lapse of it! Have a look on GONG (http://halpha.nso.edu/) and click on the film canister icon of the El Teide feed and you can see it all unfold (literally!).

Yup, there was a large ejection at around 09:00 UT this morning - looks like you've caught the remenants leaving the Sun! Check out the images on GONG - http://halpha.nso.edu/ If you click on the film canister icon in the El Teide image section, you will see it all develop and depart - it's quite amazing!

Thank you @rickwayne . To paraphrase the Prof. Cox: the beauty in scientific images really starts to emerge when you begin to understand what’s going on in them. As for APP, like all of this astro-gubbins, it has a learning curve. What resources are you using to help yourself along the journey? I am thinking about creating some (simple) guides to using APP and am interested to hear which bits have been the trickiest for you so far.

Thank you @MarsG76 & @ollypenrice - the natural look is what I am always after, so it is particularly pleasing to read your comments!

Thank you @Xplode - yes, that’s very much a galaxy. @tomato - galaxy confirmed! Thank you @MarsG76 (or are you referring to the APOD image?!?).

@tomato - they are certainly on all images I have seen of M63. The search continues! @Cozzy - thank you. Interesting to see the APOD version. It proves that a 17” scope in Dark Sky New Mexico catches more/better photons!

Thank you. That’s interesting about the two galaxies. I will be scouring the catalogues to see what I can find. If I look at them thinking of background galaxies, I can see that they could well be so. However, they look suspiciously elongated to me.

Thank you! Thank you. I guess they could be, though I've looked on Sky Safari and no mention of them. It does show some of the small galaxies towards the bottom of the image, listing them as in the region of 1 to 1.5 billion light years away! Thank you. Yes, processing is quite possibly the larger half of the story! I am a big fan of Astro Pixel Processor - it does all the donkey work, preparing everything ready for a lot less tweaking in PhotoShop than I used to do.

M63 - The Sunflower Galaxy Messier 63 - The Sunflower Galaxy - is a spiral galaxy about 29 million light years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici. It is part of the M51 Group and is one of the earliest galaxies to be studied in detail. Lord Rosse noted the spiral structure in this galaxy during the mid 19th Century with his 72 inch reflecting telescope 'Leviathan' at around the same time as he was observing the structure in M51, The Whirlpool Galaxy. M63 was the very first discovery of Charles Messier's assistant, Pierre Mechain, who caught it on June 14th 1779. Messier quickly added it to his catalogue of 'objects not to be confused with comets'. The Sunflower Galaxy is a plethora of mysteries to me - there are all sorts of features in there that don't appear 'normal': the tightly wound, grainy, spiral arms around the galactic centre, the two lines of material at right angles to eachother just below the bright star to the right of the galaxy, a small patch of 'nebulosity' a little further out to the right and below the next bright star, the line of dark material that appears to cut across the spiral arms in front of the galaxy. So many oddities that need investigating and explaining! The other thing that I like about this field of view is the large number of tiny faint fuzzies all around the frame, they must be seriously distant! Technical Details L = 23 x 1200s RGB = 18 x 600s each TOTAL = 16 hrs 40 mins Celestron EdgeHD 8", QSI 683-WSG8 & Astrodon 31mm Filters, Mesu 200. Processed in APP and PS CC. It's taken me a while to get around to processing this data set - it was all captured at the end of April and beginning of May. I'm pretty happy with the result. There are a few 'awkward' bright stars that suffer from the Edge 8's inability to treat all wavelengths equally - I've played with the collimation, but that doesn't appear to solve this issue. I am ever more impressed with the Mesu and its ability to steer the 2032mm focal length so steadily, resulting in the sharpest images I've ever taken with the Edge 8". So much better than the HEQ5 ever managed, despite me being very fond of my trusty little HEQ5! I hope you like the image and I look forward to seeing your comments. Clear skies!

Thank you. Congratulations on the start of your freedom! Good luck with the obsy build... years of tinkering in the offing - excellent! It will be great! The disappointment will be forthcoming in the shape of endless cloud! Collimation was done on a star, with the camera still attached taking looping short exposures and the view zoomed right in. Worked well.

Oooh yes, that all seems to be working rather nicely!

What mount have you gone for? Yes, I have been quite attentive towards collimation recently. I’m happy to report that it has been relatively easy too. Well worth doing as the difference is significant. Thanks Dave. Yup, on to the next glob... Autofocus was almost cooperative! It managed to do it on this framing too, without having to slew away from the Globular. It’s still a bit of a pillock though and often messes up with the Edge. It also has to be very nearly perfect to start with for any degree of success. I ended up nursing the system through each session, which is fine, but not quite the ‘fire and forget’ system it is with the refractors!

Thank you. Yes, native FL, no reducer involved. Long live the Mesu!!!

Messier 92 - The 'Other' Globular Cluster in Hercules Here is my image of M92, the other Globular Cluster in Hercules. It is about 27,000 light years away from Earth and is one of the brightest and oldest Globular Clusters observed in the Milky Way. I was curious to read that it is one of the oldest as my thoughts while processing the image were around how many blue stars there are in it, wondering whether that might suggest that it is younger than other globulars I have imaged... how wrong I turned out to be! The question remains - why so many blue stars? Answers on the back of a postcard to London, W12 8QT (sorry youngsters, you probably won't get that reference!). I expect to read the term 'blue stragglers' a great deal!! The image is made from just one hour of data in each of red, green and blue filters. That is so way below my usual data requirement, but I think the image is OK as it is. I started doing a quick data process just to see how the project was coming along, but began to think that it was looking pretty good and wondered whether any more data would make a significant difference or not. My intention is to move on to another globular cluster instead of continuing with this one. What do you all reckon? Enough data at just three hours to warrant moving on to the next target or not? Technical Details RGB = 12 x 300s each TOTAL = 3 hours Celestron EdgeHD 8", QSI 683-WSG8 with Astrodon 31mm filters, Mesu 200. Processed in APP and PS. I look forward to reading your comments and wish you all clear skies as we now move again towards the long dark nights of winter, well slowly in the right direction anyway!

Excellent Helen. Is this your proposal coming to fruition?!! Let’s hope the mission makes it through the next stage of selection and it then doesn’t have to wait at L2 for too long before a suitable candidate comet comes along! Will you get involved at all?

Yes, it takes so much fiddling to get everything spinning at the same time, but as you say, that’s half the fun of it all. The bonus of ‘one touch imaging’ (ha ha, more of a concept than a reality!) is that you can enjoy a bit of visual while the kit chunters away. Good luck and enjoy your continued fiddling! I’m shocked to hear about the tilty FSQ106 issues, though not that surprised, I’ve heard many reports of this. Must be sortable, but will involve the terrifying attack with small screwdrivers! If you want a lackey to go out there and fiddle with it all until the system is up and running reliably, I’d like to apply for the position please!!

Sun and Moon culmination times... Sun in the yellow band (around 13:00) and Moon in the grey band (around 03:30).

Ah ha... very suspicious! That Penrice must have a larger collision radius than he bargained for!!! Hopefully it is simply a nudge out of place and pushing in the USB cable to seat it properly will sort the problems. Has the set-up been working properly and had plenty of use before this recent hiccup?

Yup, Tom, definitely sounds like a USB issue, something I’ve suffered from in my own set up. What are you using kit wise to connect up? Is the camera connected directly to the Eagle unit or is there a hub involved? One thing I’ve used to sure up USB connections is an electrical damp protection spray: https://www.amazon.co.uk/ACF-50-Motorcycle-Automotive-Metal-Anti-Corrosion/dp/B0761TV16Y/ref=asc_df_B0761TV16Y/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310561958390&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11069740108936427647&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045600&hvtargid=pla-701391861078&psc=1 You’ll have to speak nicely to the night assistant... surely he has something of this nature in his tool box that could be applied?

Thanks Dave. I was sent 'Pulsar_Observatories_ASCOM_Driver 6.3.6.msi' by Pulsar this morning and have installed that successfully. Don't know what version your installer is?

Hello Gordon, Thank you for your reply. Indeed, it should have been a simple download from a 24/7 website, but alas, nothing is easy in astronomy! Thankfully I have had a reply from Pulsar (the very kind Steve was swift to respond) and I have the ASCOM driver installer that I was after. I have run it and all is now as it should be; SGP has been introduced to Pulsar and they seem to be getting on pretty well! I did have a USB stick with the relevant software on it when I purchased the dome, but that is all several years out of date now. I have had various updates over the past few years from the software developer himself, but wanted to ensure that I had the very latest and greatest software to install on the new system. All I need now is a clear and dark night to give it a proper field test. That may prove a whole lot more difficult than it was to obtain the software itself! Fingers crossed... Gav.

I’ve just installed the Pulsar Dome software version 1.0.32.0 on my new Obsy PC, but there is no ASCOM Driver. I presume it is a separate install. I have emailed Pulsar and am sure they will come up with the goods, but I’m impatient! Does anybody have the latest Pulsar ASCOM Dome Driver install package please?

Annie, great news that you are having some success and making forwards progress! I’m not sure I know the answers to all your questions... the overriding answer to all of them is simply - that’s the way I do it and it works! 1. Yes, I create the masters first and then process the subs. Mainly because I reuse Masters from project to project. I think it is possible to load everything up, dark frames, bias frames, flat frames and lights and then click go and it will do everything in one big lump. I don’t tend to work that way. 2. No idea! 3. I think because the MasterBias is subtracted from the darks, so the MasterDark has no bias, the same is true of the MasterFlats. You then load the MasterBias with the Lights, the MasterFlats and MasterDarks so the Lights have Bias, Dark and Flat all subtracted. 4. I don’t know. I guess it either isn’t used or it acts like a dark frame subtraction for the Flats. I refer to my earlier comment - it works for me that way! I look forward to hearing how you get on and what discoveries you make along the way. I am always keen to hear how to improve my use of APP. It’s a great tool for processing, but I have so much to learn about it! I always wonder why I load a MasterDark and a BPM... aren’t they doing the same job in slightly different ways? I just get on and do what I always do and am happy with the outcome so try not to question too much! Gav.

Just looking at the latest version I have installed (1.074.1), I see that I haven't updated the notes to reflect button names - where you see "click 'calibrate' button" in the notes, read "click 'create Masters & assign to Lights'". Good luck and let us know how you get on...

Hi, here are my notes for using APP to create Master Calibration frames... hopefully they might help. Create Master Files ‘Set Work Directory’ to ‘_Master Files’ folder in Astro Photography folder (I've created the folder in the right place before starting) Bias 1) Load – Load all bias frames into bias section 2) Calibrate – scroll down to Master Bias section integrate = median outlier rejection = sigma clip kappa = 3.0 iterations = 1 Click ‘calibrate’ button Go to _Master Files folder and rename MasterBias Bad Pixel Map 1) Load – Darks, Flats & MasterBias 2) Calibrate – scroll down to bottom area Select ‘create Bad Pixel Map’ Deselect ‘create MasterBias, -Dark, -Flat’ Click ‘create Masters’ Darks 1) Load – Load all dark frames into dark section Load MasterBias 2) Calibrate – scroll down to Master Dark section integrate = average outlier rejection = sigma clip kappa = 3.0 iterations = 1 Click ‘calibrate’ button Go to _Master Files folder and rename MasterDark_sublength ‘Set Work Directory’ to ‘Process’ folder in project folder. Flats 1) Load screen – Load all flat files into flat section Load MasterBias & BPM 2) Calibrate screen – scroll down to Master Flat section integrate = average outlier rejection = sigma clip kappa = 3.0 iterations = 1 Click ‘calibrate’ button Go to Process folder in finder and rename file to MasterFlat_[FilterName] Return to 1) Load screen and click clear Repeat for all flats