DaveS

Great photo, and an object lesson on what's still left from the Late Heavy Bombardment.

Frost Fairs Not as often as I thought and the latest was in 1814 according to the article. I well remember the winter of '62-'63 when the Thames froze above Teddington, and the sea froze out from the land. Brr..

There was a time I remember seeing the Milky Way from my back garden in suburban London, but that was back in the late '60s I think the last time I glimpsed it was in the late '80s but it was just a faint wisp.

Yes, but you'll have to PM Grant, and they go FAST!

UPS just delivered this Which on unpacking revealed The disk is the pier top adapter for the DDM85. But what's in the ali case? This Moravian G3 16200 mk 1 with 7 position filter wheel. Now just waiting for the Baader LRGB and ultra-narrow band filters from @FLO. Yes, I do know there's a long wait for the ultra-narrow filters. But I am patient, I can wait.

Any particular reason for ditching the dual rig? I would have thought it was ideal for capturing data quickly. In terms of aperture you'll need at least 112mm for the same area, so 115 minimum realistically. with most 'fracs you'll probably need a reducer to get down to say 550-600mm FL. Or thinking outside the box, one of These?

Is your spare ED 80 in a viable condition? Because if it is then how about going to a dual rig? The other option might be to look for a wider field camera, maybe an ASI1600.

Nah, you want a Webley 0.455 revolver . We had one at school that we used as a starting pistol . The barrel was too pitted for live fire. Observing "out front" I'm more in danger of being run down by an approaching car. Edit : Cue "Dirty Harry" LOL.

Still murk here, will be staying nice and warm indoors.

Great idea, but you'll certainly need planning permission for that. Not "permitted development" at all.

Just took a photo of the back cover. Hope it comes out OK.

From FLO.

Looks like a version of This But a fair bit cheaper.

I should have made it clear that under normal circumstances I don't have to crop any 1600 images as I Calibrate with darks, It's just on odd occasions when I haven't had an up to date dark library to hand. The 183 images are still a pain to calibrate out.

Useful tables, thanks.

Nope.

15 um, binned 2x2 so 30 um square. Yep, a pretty good landing pad for helicopters. Or photons.

I found the amp-glow on the 1600 to be manageable with good darks and can be cropped without losing much frame, but the 183 drove me nuts with it's horrendous amp glow which covers so much of the sensor as to be virtually un-cropable. The only good image I got out of it was taken with meridian flips and dithering in addition to the darks, sigma stacking then saw the amp-glow spikes as artifacts and eliminated them. Otherwise just trying to use darks it proved impossible to calibrate out. My next camera which I have incoming is a CCD, a Moravian G3 16200 mk1, which also has a bigger sensor than just about all the CMOS cameras on the market.

Yes, they really are something else! I have a full set of the 3 nm filters in 1.25" from before the price skyrocketed, and wouldn't be without them. The 3 nm H-alpha can make the difference between imaging and being mooned out. The [OIII] is less moon proof, but can still work under moderate moonlight.

What Steve has just said, you *can* bin a colour camera, but you lose the colour information. Yes, CCD cameras are binned in hardware, but CMOS is done in software.

My understanding is that you can't bin colour cameras due to the Bayer pattern.

My experience with the TS 80 mm f/4.4 has made me very wary of the combined 6 - element TS designs, possibly unfairly, but once bitten as they say. In my view a 130 f/7 and APM 0.75 reducer gets you down to f.5.25 and 682.5 mm, while still leaving you the option of f/7 and 910 mm FL if you want something longer. I will admit to having been tempted by the 130 mm Imaging Star, and also by the 102 mm version, but my experience has held me back. That and the parlous state of the UKP.

Just to bring this up to date, and probably put it to bed, Both the platform and observatory PCs, running Win 10 Pro are now showing the same screen background, though I only changed the one on the new PC, also the google home screen on both, new PCs, and this PC, an old Win 7 Pro is showing the same background, again I only changed the new PC.

ATM I use AstroArt 5 (Now in ver 7) for all my stacking and processing, but debating whether to upgrade to version 7 or stump up for PI. Both cost money :(. I find the stacking in AA tio be very fast, and pretty good.

Yes, I was about to say, I've seen that ring pattern before with my SX Trius CCD when I got dew forming on the inside of the camera window.