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Everything posted by DaveS
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Computer for processing
DaveS replied to DaveG64's topic in Imaging - Image Processing, Help and Techniques
A Scan custom build, Ryzen 9750 CPU, 64GB RAM, 1 and 2 TB m2 storage. Processing in AstroArt 8 sp5 for stacking and LRGB synthesis, PixInsight for a lot of the heavy lifting, including SPCC, and RC tools. -
Practical Astronomy Show, Stoneleigh 2024, March 23rd
DaveS replied to Alan White's topic in Star Parties & Astro Events
The South West Astronomy Show should be doable for me, about an hour according to Gmaps. The W3W location seems weirdly appropriate Zone. Total. Rainy. -
Thanks guys. Yes, I think cropping the two stars at the left would be a mistake, bringing the edge of the frame too close to NGC 1055, plus they do bring something to the image, green glow or not. I have had to crop off quite large alignment edges already, especially from the right of the frame, I think my sky model or PA wasn't quite as accurate as I thought. Since rectified BTW.
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Thanks for the positive comments all. I guess I can be very self critical, and a bit of a perfectionist.
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I hesitate to post this as I'm dubious about the quality, but heigh-ho. In any case it's yet another silk purse effort. The data was collected over 9 (!) nights between the end of Sept 2022 and the last week of Jan 2023, though not all the data was useable as I had cable dragging that caused massive trailing. And of course all the subs have that horrid corruption from reflections. Graxpert helped but I still had to use a masked histogram stretch and multiple rounds of single colour attenuation in AstroArt 8, in addition to all the PI magic pixies. 69 mixed 5 and 10 min Lum subs (Accidental, not intentional), 11 17.5 min Blue subs, 19 10 min Green subs and 17 10 min Red subs (G2v calibration). Yes, there's a horrible green halo around the upper left star, no I can't be asked to remove it, plus a touch of Unsharp Mask and another slight Red reduction in the galaxies. Feel free to tear this apart, I won't be offended.
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Telescope you'd like in your collection within budget.
DaveS replied to Grump Martian's topic in The Astro Lounge
I haven't bought a 'scope since the ODK 12, and can't see myself buying anything for the foreseeable. Perhaps if I lived somewhere with more clear dark nights I might, but I cannot see any point in buying something that just won't be used. In fact I have to question whether astronomy from the UK has any future, with the increasing light pollution and cloud. The professionals have long since decamped to more favourable locations, so the only hope for us amateurs who cannot move abroad is remote hosting or robotic imaging, both of which are expensive. -
Telescope you'd like in your collection within budget.
DaveS replied to Grump Martian's topic in The Astro Lounge
I still have the Megrez 90 that I bought when I goot back into astronomy in 2011 or so, I think it does have FPL 53 glass. No, it's not for sale and will have to be prised from my cold dead hands lol. -
Telescope you'd like in your collection within budget.
DaveS replied to Grump Martian's topic in The Astro Lounge
I have a hankering after one of the Borg 55FL astrographs which I could afford but in no way justify. -
It would have to be my ODK 12 which is my most used 'scope. It's probably also the highest quality.
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Scott Manley already has a preliminary assessment / analysis.
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Thanks guys for the votes of confidence. It's well worth having a look in the background, there are a lot of faint fuzzies lurking there.
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For sure this was a lot more successful than most people expected.
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Didn't make it through reentry and the booster landed hard, so there will have to be a mishap investigation, but hopefully not too much of a delay.
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Crazy reentry footage.
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Looking good so far 🤞
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Yup, yet another reprocess, blame the rubbish weather. M106 with data captured in 2022, before I cured the reflections from OOUK's rubbish anodising that was giving un-calibratable reflections, so trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Making a complete pig's ear from a silk purse is easy for me lol. Originally I captured a load of LRGB data in bin 1 but in the end combined all the LRGB data into a synthetic luminance and captured fresh RGB data in bin 2 I needed to be brutal in the processing to kill the irregularities in the background, GraXpert helped, and BlurX in PI brought out the detail. Dunno, I've been kicking this around so much I've lost track of what I've been doing but there's an Unsharp Mask in there somewhere and several rounds of single colour attenuation to clean up the background. It doesn't take much effort to find horrors in the background, but I'm done with this rubbish data. In the unlikely event that I get enough clear nights I may revisit this target with completely new data, but until then...
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I remembered this from a year ago
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Diffraction spikes in newts
DaveS replied to Flame Nebula's topic in Discussions - Scopes / Whole setups
Did someone say "diffraction spikes" lol. This is with an OOUK ODK which has a spider that's machined from the solid. Yes, I can see the spikes aren't quite even. No, I'm not 100% sure of the cause. That searchlight is actually mag 6.3 I think. -
I've finally brought this to some kind of a conclusion (For now LOL). Between the 7th Jan and 5th Mar I captured: 54 600 sec Luminance subs at Bin1, of which 49 made it into the stack 20 each RGB 600 sec subs at Bin 2 using Baader Bessel filters, of which 16 B, 19 V, and 19 R made it through QC With the ODK 12 and ASI 533 for a totally bonkers 0.38"/px native and nominal 19' square. Stacked and Gradient Reduction in AstroArt 8 and initial work-up in PI with SPCC on the RGB stack, then BlurX on Luminance at 85% non-stellar with 25% star reduction, and NoiseX, BlurX at 50% on the RGB and again ArcSinH stretch and NoiseX. The Luminance was given DDP stretch in AstroArt 8 (I found it better than ASH for this job). The stretched RGB was given a slight Histo Stretch to bring it into the AA range. Finally LRGB synthesis was done in AstroArt. Saved as FITS and PNG C&C welcome as usual, I think the saturation may be too high, though it as it came out of SPCC and ArcSinH.
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A mug of hot chocolate with a splash of rum. Appleton Estate 12 year.
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Saying that Bortle 5 is "suburban sky" is just plain daft. I can tell you that I lived in suburban London in Ruislip and would have cheerfully murdered for Bortle 5 skies! In the end I moved house and got mid Bortle 3 Also, saying that the centre of the Milky Way casts shadows in Bortle 1 is equally daft, since the centre of the Milky Way barely makes it out of the horizon murk even from the South Coast here.
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Bournemouth Hospital has been sending me texts with a link to online letters rather than rely on RM. Sorry, that's getting OT
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When astro kit arrives late-ish that's just a bit annoying, but when hospital appointment letters arrive after the appointment or not at all, that's disastrous and happens too often. Once is too often.
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That's what I say when a drop falls of the iron and onto my hand lol