DaveS

Oh yes, I do like that. Loads of detail in the swirling dust clouds, and the core hasn't burned out.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I've held off replying in case anyone else chimed in. I'd like to get them from @FLO as I have the voucher to use.

Wow Dave, that is just plain stunning, 42 hours really paid off. Not having a dual rig something like that would be out of the question for me, but I can dream...

Bias Frames are like Dark Frames, but taken at the shortest possible exposure, to reveal any underlying unevenness in the sensor. For CCD I use Bias but not Dark, for CMOS Dark is vital but Bias can stuff up your stack.

Or possible alternatives. I currently have a pair of Carl Zeiss 7x50 Jenoptem bins that I bought donkey's years ago when I was in my very early 20s and my pupils could accept a 7mm exit beam. Now I'm in my 60s I reckon 5mm might be more like it, meaning I'm only using the central 35mm or so of the lens. Therefore I was thinking of raising the magnification to 10x to make use of the full aperture of the lenses. As I have astigmatism in both eyes, I need to wear glasses when observing, and my interpupillary distance looks to be about 68mm. I have a £100 FLO voucher that needs using using fairly quickly so I thought of putting it toward a good, but not extravagant pair. These will likely be used hand held for casual observing while imaging. I don't mind individual focusing of the eyepieces, and am not sure of the relative merits of Porro vs Roof Prisms. My location rates SQI 21.66, so fairly dark but not exceptional.

I had another go at processing, taking it right back to the original stacks and trying to avoid clipping the Black Point. I also flipped it into a more conventional orientation. I'm not sure this isn't worse as I'm now seeing a bright ellipse around the galaxy that looks to be an artifact of stretching. I had to apply a touch of LPF to the final image as it was getting a bit noisy in the outer arms

Thanks Steve, I'll have another look at the FITS. I did pull the black down a bit as I thought there was a bright halo around M33 that was a precessing artifact that I should get rid of, I may have pulled it down too far.

No, not the journey from hell, but my latest attempt at imaging M33, the Triangulum Spiral This is 2 hours each in H-alpha, L, R, G, B. The Hydrogen in 10 min bubs, the LRGB in 5 min subs. 130 f/7 TS triplet, APM-Riccardi reducer ASI1600 in Max DR setting capture with Maxim DL Stacking and Processing in AstroArt 7 with calibrated Flats, and Darks. Ha added to the Red stack, then RGB synthesis followed by DDP. Luminance given DDP and Maximum Entropy Deconvolution. LRGB synthesis followed by a light Histogram Stretch and a slight Saturation Boost. Phew! Slight cropping to get rid of a few alignment edges. C&C welcome, as usual.

According to Wiki, Sagittarius A* has a declination of -29 degrees, so a max altitude of about 10 degrees, even from the south coast. Somewhere dark with a sea horizon. How about the West Bexington car park? it's right on the beach, though there's a restaurant there which may be a problem. Light Pollution map says 21.72 Which is nearly as dark as it gets on the south coast. Other than that maybe the Isles of Scilly?

Google maps says 4 hour 30 min minimum. For a one day show I think I'll pass.

Well, it wasn't a repeat. In two minds about it, a bit too much "Horizon" not enough Jim A-K.

Yep

Although it has a HD display my rubbish 24" telly doesn't have a HD tuner, so if I want to see the full resolution I have to pick up on iPlayer.

Just watched on iPlayer to catch the start, plus I get a cleaner picture and can route the sound through my big floor-standing speakers, gives me a chance to hear what they're saying.

Well done Carole @carastro, I've just received my AN for this month and seen your Bogeyman image, Looking good. 👍

Not all focusers make connection to the coarse side easy. The two on my TS triplets have grub screws only on the fine-focus side. After a conversation with Rupert at Astrograph he recommended attaching any focuser to the fine side as otherwise it would mean removing the whole pinion shaft. Looking at the FT on my ODK12 I think it would be possible to remove the coarse knob.

Although I have tried [SII] under the full moon, I found the subs rubbish, even with a 3nm Astrodon, and I wouldn't even consider [OIII]. HII is OK, [NII] maybe if you have it and the target shows a strong signal, perhaps M27 or other brightish PN. TBH, my last experience may have been atypical, as I think there was some very thin high cloud that was being lit by the moon and was making the sky very luminous.

There was no indication of a repeat, but if it had been on BBC2 it wouldn't show as a repeat. Will watch it anyway, it might jog my memory.

Einstein's Quantum Riddle. Quantum Entanglement, prepare to have your brain bent. Also S @ N at 7.30, repeated from Sunday if you didn't catch it then, and Brian Cox, Wonders of the Universe, pt 1, a n inevitable repeat.

They're still on their quote, but as for budget, it's case of "as much as it costs" But there has been a big increase in projected cost, as I've decided to automate the roof and other elements of the imaging, as I don't want to lose imaging time through being stuck indoors, as happened in December, when I lost three of the darkest, clearest nights i've seen since I moved here due to back problems.

I'm not sure how important the gap between Green and Red is these days with the increasing use of BB LED lighting, plus the gap will have minimal effect on HP Na lighting, as the gap coincides with the self-absorption dark band where the Na D lines are.

And so it begins. The contractors turned up and started excavations plus delivered some ballast. The area laid out. First load of ballast The excavation for the foundation begins.

I heard that as well. Will there be a "Star Gazing Live" in February?

On Now!

I bought a set of Baader LRGB and NB from IKI in a bundle with SX694 and wheel in 2014. Big halos from the [OIII] filter so bought a full set of 3nm Astrodons. Couldn't afford to do that now .