Andrew Singleton

Same here! I wanted a landscape shot and the location of the camp near the Ngorongora crater was great although there was a full moon. I set up the camera and was pressing the remote shutter from inside the tent. I took a few photos before just getting too scared. No way I wanted to die which fiddling with my ISO settings. I sware that later that night I heard purring outside of the tent. Maybe I should have paid some Masai guys to stand there with me with those guns they carry! They would have taken 100s of dollars of me! The week after we went to zanzibar when the moon had cooled down somewhat. Again I was too scared to go out and get a picture. The view of sagittarius directly above was amazing! To be honest I don't regret anything, it was an fantastic trip and I frustrated my new wife by taking way too many wildlife photos.

OK for peoples future google searches I have worked this out. I had to install Windows 10 version 20H2 which as of Dec 2010 is the latest version. Its been trying to install this for ages on my PC failing every time. I had to download a special file to update and it finally did it.

Ive been using a really bottom of the range cheap cheap laptop for astrophotography and finally managed to make the move indoors. This means that I can start to use my 5 year old (but sill very decent PC). As always I left the groundwork to when the skies cleared and have managed to get most things working other than the asi120mm mini drivers on Windows 10. I've sent this to ZWO as the drivers just won't install. I was just wondering if anyone has has a similar issue and has a decent workaround. *This camera was installed on another device using an earlier driver about a year ago. This works and still works. *After installing,the asi120mm mini appears in device manager with a question mark. When going in it says the drivers are not there. *I have tried to install the drover manually choosing the ZWO program files folder. It tries to do it but then comes up with a message. Windows encountered a problem installing the drivers for your device Windows found drivers for your device but encountered an error while attempting to install them. ZWO ASI120MM Mini Camera The publisher of an Authenticode(tm) signed catalog was not established as trusted. *I tried uninstalling the driver and putting it out of program files. This did not help. * I tried logging on as the administrator. This did not help. *I tried using different ports, this did not help. *I restarting in safe mode. No joy. * I tried restarting in a special mode thats supposed to allow installing unsigned drivers this did not work. *I've tried googling this and come up with not much, one place did make me look at a file called setupapi.dev and look put for line with a triple !!!. I did this and found the following... !!! sig: Driver package signer is unknown, and user does not trust signer. !!! sig: Driver package failed signature validation. Error = 0xE000243 !!! ndv: Driver package import failed for this device !!! ndv: Error 0xe000243 The publisher of an authenticode(tm) signed catalog was not established as trusted. *I am using Windows 10 version 2004 (19041.572). I appreciate this is slightly behind and intend on updating. I think that's about it. I've been imaging without guiding tonight because of this, but it means the computer in question is in use and I don't want to mess about with it. Clouds here in the UK only move once every 3 months! If you want log files, screenshot or anything like that let me know and I'll do it another day. Thanks Andrew

Gosh, I had to read that a few times but that makes sense to me now. I'd only just started thinking about pixel size and was wondering why that makes such an effect on camera choice. Linking it to aperture was something I had not considered. I had wondered why the recommended pixel size for the red cat was so small and its because of this. Well now you put it like that, it seems obvious that you don't want a whopping electronic filter system blocking all of those photons!

This is certainly true where I am based. For andromeda I spent several (close to) perfect evenings taking pictures of it using my cheap DSLR and the colour is no where near where I want it to be. In Bortle 4 and below I've heard this can be done in an hour, at some point I might drive out and work that out for myself. This group has been helpful for me, I think I am now more certain about going down the mono route. For the time being I don't plan on remote photography although its on a todo list to get me to a point where I cam properly do it. A bit of a tangent this but I'm interested as to why the RASA's are so different and better with OSC? I get that they are fast, f2 I believe, but surely the percentage of photons going through that bayer layer is the same as with an f5 newtonian or even an f10 richi cassegrain. Surely the large appature and short focal length would equally improve the mono cameras ability to the colour. This astrophotography malarkey is a constant lesson to me! 😀

Another thing I have heard from by people in these forums is that for the most light polluted areas perhaps just doing RGB or HaRGB instead of LRGB. I wonder if in these projects they took flats too. Personally, if I go mono, I will want to make my own mind up on whether to include L or not. I'm keen on following Robin Glovers advice doing super short subs and live stacking. I guess once you go down the mono route the possibilities and experimentation are endless! Another reason to go mono actually in my opinion.

@smr Yes I'm up against it in bortle 8, I have managed to get some decent (for me!) photos though, its the colour that seems to be the most challenging in post processing. Hopfully the mono with filters will help with that.

@vlaiv Arr yes, the flats are going to need to be considered. I dont have a permanent setup but I do plan on keeping the camera connected to the telescope so hoping I can get away with shooting flats semi-regularly. Its all well and go until I have to turn the camera 90 degrees to frame the photo. I must admit, with my DSLR I take flats after every session. With mono and multiple filters would you need to take red flats, refocus, take blue flat, refocus, take green flats, etc? That would be a major pain at 3am! I guess you could just do flats before switching to another filter. If time was short I was thinking of doing perhaps 15 mins at a time and cycling through, another thing I'm hoping to take advantage of is live stackibng. Thanks for your detailed responce.

@geordie85 I really like your seven sisters pic, its just the sort of example I was looking for in fact. Good to see something done in an hour and perhaps confirms my thoughts. I think you might be right about the reviews being different if he were buying himself. When its his livelihood at stake I wonder who is the customer, us the viewer or the person providing him with these camera's and essentially advertising, I spent 10 years of my life in Newcastle. When I went visiting friends recently I went out past Corbridge, the darks skies are fantastic.

@happy-kat I like the idea of getting some b/w pics as well, I think it will help with my understanding of what these objects are made off. I think the forecast would have to have at least 2 hours predicted for me to get out, If I found the filter wheel fast enough maybe I could switch every 15 mins, I dont know.

Thanks, in my understanding of quality I am pretty convinced that mono is the superior. I do really like that idea about looking at peoples photos and guessing the equipment used, I'll perhaps look at that tonight. My primary thinking at the moment is to do with time saved in the field(garden) using that OSC and is it really that much of a time saver.

I am potentially lucky enough to be in a position soon to buy a dedicated CMOS astronomy camera and think I have my mind set on a mono camera, an electronic filter wheel, a full set of filters and an electronic focuser. Opportunities to do astrophotography are sparse. I am addicted to watching YouTube videos and one thing that keeps making me doubt my choice is astrobackyards Trevor Jones, his one shot colour cameras, and him telling us that this type of astrophotography is much quicker than a mono setup and much better when opportunities are sparse. He is very persuasive but I cant help but think that it might be a closer call than he is making out. Here is my thinking. The colour cameras have the Bayer layer RGGB so for red and blue you are getting 25% protons and for green you are getting 50% protons. Lets say I image for 75 minutes using a colour camera and 75 minutes using a mono camera and filters, surely I’m pretty much getting the same amount of data, surely I’m getting an even amount of data for every filter and surely if I wanted to change these percentages it in my will to do so. I get that luminance is debatably needed and that I may need to spend more time on this. Trevor seem to do a lot manual work, so can imagine that when he switches from colour to colour it takes time to switch the filter and refocus. With an electronic filter wheel and electronic focuser I am imagining that this can’t take that long. Perhaps I have underestimate the work needed here. The quantum efficiency of the mono camera is more than the OSC. Perhaps this is time gained for the mono lost to my points in 2 and 3 above. He has fancy duel band and even quad band filters that he uses in his videos. These do look attractive but surely my points above of RGGB vs specific filters still apply. He is essentially putting 2 filters on blocking light and then a similar percentages of protons are getting through because they have to get through the RGGB layer too. In terms of processing time, let’s face it, in Manchester I am not short on processing time. I love processing, I love the idea of having the flexibility of all these different filters to play with and to see how the different results can come out. I completely agree that RGGB would be easier and quicker to process, I do it now with my D3100, but for me this represents no progress in my hobby and less of the fun putting it all together. As you can see I have thought a lot about this, but there is still that niggle, the guy is so passionate about his choice that could he be right? What are other peoples thoughts on this? Given the points I’ve made are there any glaring misunderstandings I have relayed here? Id love for someone to constructively argue against or for the points I have made. I'd love to hear about other factors that I might be missing. Thanks in advance and sorry if this is an over-talked about topic in these walls, I have read up on this topic over and over again but wanted to get all my thoughts in one place. P.S. We live in a golden age of youtube, Trevor’s videos are fantastic (apart from the bits at the end that make me cringe, silence follow by epic music and his results!), galactic hunters videos seem really good (perhaps the cutest geeky couple there is!), I like the toned down style of Ed Ting, Cuiv the geek is good especially getting results in the middle of the city, Dylan O’Donnell come across as the most funny/intelligent of all the regulars and perhaps the most helpful informative video was Robin Glovers lecture which progressed my understanding of this hobby in leaps and bounds.

I can confirm the pds is a fantastic scope. The perfect one for learning the basics like collimation before taking on larger scopes. As mentioned don't get the other skywatcher 130 as you won't achieve focus without a Barlow, ok for planets, not so much deep sky.

When the Moon was a short distance from Mars the other day, I was marvelling at Orion rising (as you do) then turned slightly and witnessed a meteor shooting down right next to the conjunction. The clouds rolled in immediately after but this very brief gap was great!

The colour of the nebula is really striking. Nice shot.

Just a note on this, I've gone back into Star Tools and I am becoming familiar with the 'Heal' module. It really is a powerful piece of software as its doing a reasonable job of getting rid of the reflection line. You can still tell its there but may miss it to an untrained eye. I also processed it quickly so I could put my questions to this forum and have realized that it is a 2 bit process! The noise is terrible and the bloody green is far too prominent. Its time to do another process, just maybe not in work hours...

Thanks for that, yes you are right that all of the lines do point to Deneb. It does seem to slightly move between frames so maybe this is just the reflection moving. I've never had anything like this before. This hobby just keeps sending me curve balls to steal an American phrase!

Thanks, I guess what puzzles me if it was an satellite or space debris then why would it be a consistent line instead of a smaller one or even just dot? I should add that my exposures were 3 minutes long, and the line is in each of them for 3 nights gradually moving from right to left. The raw files I attached were just 1 sub of several each night.

Hi I've been setting up my telescope to take the 'Pelican' nebula these last few nights with my old Nikon D3100 and Skywatcher 130PDS. When I processed it today there were 2 lines in the image. Looking back at my subs, on day one there was a line on the right side but not in the middle, day two was almost a write off, but the in limited frames I had the line was sort of in the middle, and then last night the line had moved again a bit to the left but no where near where it was before. I have checked my equipment can not find anything wrong with it, could this be a comet? It does seem to be a bit too straight if it is. Its weird how it moved so much between nights 1 and 2 but not so much between nights 2 and 3. Its a bit of a pain because I was hoping for a nice pelican picture. I guess if it was a comet then it would be less annoying but if its a slowly gravitating hair it would be disappointing! Thanks Andrew Autosave.tiff Night 1.NEF Night 2.NEF Night 3.NEF

Wait a minute! Theres a 3 hour period tomorrrow night...Just as Im cycling home from work. Maybe Ill try and start early and finish early.

Well I can say I've tried and looking forward to see if my efforts have resulted in some good photos! The persistant cover of cloud and the threat of rain is beating me at the moment! So much so that if orion hadn't have briefly appeared from behind the clouds the other day I would be questioning my belief that stars do in fact exist! It seems patience is key tool when embarking on the hobby in the greater Manchester area. Maybe Ill have another tinker with it today and make absolutely sure everything is right. When i actually get to take some pictures I need to make sure everything works.

Some fantastic pictures there from what seems to be a very urban environment. I would love to own one of these camera's in the long run but have a lot of saving to do first!

Thanks for posting your very decent colimations! It helps a lot. A laser and a cheshire are on my list of future purchases. Im posting where i got mine too on Sunday. Im almost happy although it bothers me that the reflection of the secondary in the primary has visible curves between 6 oclock and 9 oclock and not between 4.30 and 7.30 opposite the focuser tube. It looked perfectly fine inside the telescope. ( i hope that made sense as its dificuly to describe!) That said im not getting hung up on it. If, when the skies clear, this turns out to be still wrong then i'll try and correct it but if its ok then why change it!

Ive also been learning how to colimate over the last 2 weeks. Its interesting see other peoples efforts. Has anyone with perfect colimation taken a picture through their cap? Ive seen diagrams in the helpful guides but not a picture. Ive not yet had a clear night to try it out what ive done but im hoping!

I set up the telescope again on Sunday and somehow managed to find that 2 and a half hours disappeared out of my life while I was tinkering. Using both the article suggested above and the article I linked to at the top of the thread I think I am close to what it should be. As I don't have Laser or a Cheshire there are some things I cant do. Using a piece of paper blocking out the primary I managed to get the secondary mirror to be centralised, then without the piece of paper I fiddled a lot with the secondary adjustment screws to try and get the thing aligned in the middle. I can definitely see all 3 clips clearly and its pretty much in the middle, I say pretty much because I struggled to perfect it buts its pretty damn close. I had to redo the primary when I finished but I'm hoping its there. At least I am now closer to knowing what I'm aiming for and how to do it. I will invest in both a Cheshire and a laser when I have more money to spend. I'm really keen to try it out now and see whether or not its made any difference. Accuweather has been teasing me this week but keeps changing its mind.