PhotoGav

Hi Richard, I used to use my EdgeHD 8” on an HEQ5 Pro Mount and I can confirm, with real world evidence, that it works. Are you going to use it for purely visual or do you intend to take photos with it too?

Andrew has been a super kind soul with a very generous gesture that is going to be hugely appreciated by many many pupils. I will keep a thread updated with how the project develops, which hopefully will be useful for others thinking about starting radio meteor detection. Now cross everything for the build phase!!

3 minutes ago, andrew s said:

PM sent on some kit you might like. Regards Andrew 

and replied... thank you!

I would like to set up a radio system to detect meteors using GRAVES. There appear to be quite a few success stories of members doing this here, so I am looking to you all for your assistance in specifying the kit required. As I understand it, I need an antenna, connected to an RTL-SDR dongle, plugged in to a PC that is running SpectrumLab. I then tweak everything and the software will recognise the radio frequency 'hits' as meteors burn up in the atmosphere. Is this correct?! Next question is the killer one: which antenna and SDR dongle are recommended for this kind of system?

I hope that you will be able to help.

Many thanks,

Gav.

1 hour ago, bottletopburly said:

What does the framing mode do in sgp ? Apt has framing masks that you can create from your images .

The Framing & Mosaic Wizard in SGPro is extremely useful. It helps you to frame up a target. You enter in the name of the object or its coordinates and it fetches a DSS image of that patch of sky. You then overlay a square (or squares, if planning a mosaic, with appropriate orientation and overlap attributes) for your set-up's field of view. Click 'yes please' and it creates a new target event in your sequence with the RA & Dec populated. Very quick and easy to use and a great way to start preparing acquisition of a new target; it makes the tricky job of planning out a mosaic ridiculously easy.

I suppose the plan is that by having more income from this 'project' of theirs (they being Ken & Jared - who are two very nice guys, by the way!) will be able to spend more time on SGP and taking it forwards, rather than having to earn money from a day job and then try and support this every growing beast in the evening.

The upgrade seems to work pretty easily, so if you have fears about the whole thing falling apart when you upgrade, it doesn't appear to be the case. Tonight looks clear, so I will be conducting a real world test... fingers crossed!

I used to use APT many years ago and agree, Ivo, the developer is very responsive and has built a great piece of software. I had copious issues with APT crashing back then, I'm sure those issues are fixed now, but how does it compare to SGP, functionality wise? Is it as fully featured as SGP?

Enjoy tonight's forecast clear skies, if you are lucky enough to be forecast clear skies, and I hope this new version of SGP doesn't generate a swell of bug reports tomorrow morning!

Interesting responses, thank you all. Yes, it has come out of nowhere, hasn't it? Communication with their current customer base is evidently not a priority for the SGP developers! I have gone and paid the subscription for this year, in the hope that my 'premium support' access will get my various gripes dealt with sooner rather than later and that this is all being done as version 4 is about to be released, with amazing new functionality... go on, let me dream..!

My problem is that I can't fault the software. It has been a relatively painful process getting it to work, but Ken and Jared have been very responsive to my problems and requests. For the money back then, it was great and I have enjoyed being part of the beta development process for them. I currently have a system that works and allows me to 'fire and forget'.

I will have to look at NINA and EKOS, but I have to say that the idea of knocking down my current observatory 'house of cards' and the inevitable pain of trying to build a new one might just be too much for me and makes $59 seem worth paying!

Ken and Jared at Sequence Generator Pro have just changed their payment model. The software has become a one off membership fee ($149) plus an annual subscription fee ($59 / year). Does this represent good value still? It has been my observatory and imaging control package of choice for about five years and was amazingly good value when it was a one off fee, plus very rare upgrade fees. I am wondering what the alternative software packages are that provide equally good (or better) control of everything? Please let me know what you use, how much it costs and how good it is!

Thanks,

Gav.

Damn!
 

Though I have had a quick search online and CS6 should work on Mojave... look at this: https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/install-creative-suite-mac-os-sierra.html

Progress is wonderful, but happens so quickly with all these digital devices that it doesn't take long to be left out of date! I have only just taken the plunge and upgraded my MacBook to Catalina and find that one of my scanners is no longer supported... doh!

You should try updating your Mac to MacOS Mojave, which is OS 10.14. All your 32 bit apps will still work with that. Catalina is 10.15 and does require 64 bit apps, so avoid that until you are ready! Here's a link to find Mojave: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT210190 - scroll down to the download section and the app store link is there.

Good luck.

Thank you all for your kind comments. It is definitely an interesting target. I like @ollypenrice’s idea of ‘favourite galaxy’ - this one would certainly be on the list, but which would be top of my list? I’ll have to consider that one!

You can load an integrated stack into APP through the ‘Other/Processed’ button at the very top of the 1) LOAD tab. Turn off Multi-Channel/Filter and Multi-Session Processing first. You can then apply the stretching etc in the right hand panel or got to 9) TOOLS and use them.

Hope that gets you moving forwards.

This is a very interesting topic!

I love the focal length of an SCT, but they have a certain softness and are generally a bit of a pig to use for imaging. I have a Celestron EdgeHD 8" and almost love it...! If I had the cash, I think I would invest in an Esprit 150 and take the hit in focal length, but enjoy the vast increase in quality. If you do go for the SCT, be warned that really the only way to successfully guide it is with an OAG.

I look forward to hearing what people reckon about the long focal length options available these days.

Lockdown has been very productive for my observatory. I am slowly making my way through the multiple target data sets that I have acquired through the spring and summer. Here is my latest process: NGC 4725, the One-Armed Spiral Galaxy and it is pretty clear to see why it has that name! Most spiral galaxies have two or more arms, but unusually, NGC 4725 appears to have just one. It forms a ring around the core of the galaxy, giving rise to its alternative name, the Ringed Galaxy. Why just one arm or how it formed is a bit of a mystery! NGC 4725 lives about 41 million light years away in the constellation of Coma Berenices, the patch of sky found between Ursa Major, Leo, Boötes and Virgo. It stretches across about 140,000 light years, making it bigger than our own Milky Way, which is about 100,000 light years across.

Data captured with Celestron EdgeHD 8" and QSI 683-WSG8 with 31mm Astrodon filters all on a Mesu 200.

RGB = 10 x 600s each
L = 27 x 1200s
TOTAL = 14 hours

Thanks for looking and I hope you like it! All thoughts and comments gratefully received.

Clear skies and stay safe!

Thank you @PaulM, @tomato and @Ronclarke.

Yes, I did use ‘Calibrate Star Colour’ in APP, though with great caution. I selected my sample star areas as far as possible from the globular itself as the algorithm requires main sequence stars and the globular is full of anything but main sequence stars! Huge fan of APP, it has greatly sped up my processing workflow.

Phew, I’m relieved to read this as I have been lying on the sun lounger, enjoying the occasional Perseid meteor, wondering why there seemed to be quite a lot of occasional flashing. Fairly confident it wasn’t my eyes, I had put it down to lights on the combine harvesters I could hear working in nearby fields, but I wasn’t totally convinced!

Would love it to be a Pink Floyd reunion gig! Saw the Floyd at Earls Court in 1994 and would love to relive that whole experience!

Done.

This is my latest attempt at this most wonderful of globular clusters - Messier 13, the Great Hercules Cluster. Globs are my favourite objects visually in a telescope, the intensity and sheer number of stars is mesmerising. I also find them fascinating as nobody seems to really know where they originate from - are they stripped galaxies, cluster formations or what?! As I'm sure you are aware, this globular cluster is about 25,000 light years away from Earth in the Keystone asterism in Hercules.

The data for this project was gathered (or should that be 'were gathered'? though that never sounds right to me!) during May. I have only just got round to processing it. It consists of 24 x 300s in each of RGB and 42 x 300s in Lum, making a total integration time of 9 1/2 hours. I used a Celestron EdgeHD 8" with a QSI 683-WSG8 and 31mm Astrodon filters, all on a Mesu 200.

I'm happy with the result, especially as 'the Propellor' is pretty visible in the upper right quadrant of the cluster. I'm never certain about star colours, but I think this is about right. I used APP and PS to process the data. Please let me know what you think of it.

Clear skies and enjoy the Perseids tonight, weather permitting!

10 hours ago, tomato said:

Gav, why do we need to wait for another comet, do you not have some subs ‘in the can’?  I tried to create an aligned comet and stars composite in PI, but without success.

I do have some NEOWISE data that I would use, but I shot it knowing that it is a hassle to process long total exposure times of a comet. Having good comet & stars software would influence the way I shoot new data. I tried the two stack combo with DSS for Wirtanen (I think it was that one) and it was sort of OK, but drove me completely potty! And who doesn’t love a bright comet with a huge long tail or two?!?!

Thank you Grant & Daz, that was an excellent presentation this evening by the master that is Mabula! Can't wait for him to complete the comet stuff and release it to us - then all we will need is another decent comet.

Great idea to get Mabula back to talk through different parts of APP - it is such a fully featured app now that it takes quite a bit of time to get to grips with everything. Fabulous results every time from it though, so well worth the effort. I await to hear when his next installment will be.

2 hours ago, Rodd said:

One of my favorite galaxies and you did it justice.  Its a tough little core, huh?  There is a lot opf structure in there under the brightness.

Thank you Rodd. Yes indeed, the core is a tricky one. It took some taming as there is plenty of detail in it - a sort of quarter pattern going on. I was torn between this rendition and reducing its brightness further. In the end I decided to leave it relatively bright as I felt that is more representative of the way the galaxy appears to us. 

Thank you @alan potts - I try my best!

Thank you @Adreneline and @tomato  Yes, 2.3 billion light years and a blob that is more than one pixel in size is a PB for me I think!

I have finally started making my way through processing a number of data sets that I have gathered through the spring. Here is the first of them - Messier 100. It is a spiral galaxy about 56 million light years from Earth in the constellation of Coma Berenices. The distance to M100 is well established as Hubble has observed over 20 Cepheid variables within the galaxy and this has enabled the distance to be calculated with a high degree of accuracy.

There are all sorts of other galaxies in the field of view, which is not surprising given that M100 is a member of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. I thought it would be interesting to highlight them and look up their distances. This is what I found:

M100 = 56 Mly
IC783A = 64 Mly
PGC 40045 = 30 Mly
PGC 4104234 = 930 Mly
PGC 4104233 = 2300 Mly
PGC 40184 = ??
NGC 4322 = 92 Mly
PGC 40214 = ??
NGC 4328 = 30 Mly
PGC 3090632 = 970 Mly

Technical Details

Celestron EdgeHD 8" and QSI 683-WSG8 with 31mm Astrodon Filters, all on a Mesu 200.

L = 30 x 1200s
RGB = 10 x 600s each
TOTAL = 15 hours

I hope you like it! I'm pretty happy with the result, except for some streaking in the upper left quadrant of the image. I have seen this before when there has been a bright star just outside the field of view, however I couldn't find a culprit this time. I only saw the streaks when processing the data and it was all too late then. Nevermind, it is what it is!

Clear skies all and enjoy comet NEOWISE while it's here.

8 minutes ago, Zakalwe said:

That's a great result and a damn fine image.

Looks like the outrage bus won't be as full as we first thought.

In other news, tonight's launch of the next batch of Starlink will be testing visorsto shield the antennae from the Sun. https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/07/spacex-will-try-to-launch-starlink-satellites-with-visors-on-tuesday/

Thank you - I look forward to gathering a load more luminance for this project now that the Moon is on the wane again. I would say that much more than normal is required to combat all the satellite trails, but that would just be inflamatory!!

It will be very interesting to see how effective the brightness mitigation strategies that SpaceX are trying really are. I finally watched last month's Sky At Night, which has a whole section about the Starlink satellites. Makes for very interesting viewing.