DaveS

And extending your analogy, Bortle 1 is walking up the steps at Wembley to lift the FA cup.

My eyes are are a bit wonky with age, so the faintest stars I can see are brighter than they should be from how well I see slightly extended objects, and especially the Milky Way.

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Ooh, that would be *very* interesting, but definitely in the eye watering second mortgage territory!

That's interesting, but what we need from ZWO are more MONO cameras, OSC is of very limited utility. ATM there's a big gap between the low-end, small sensor and compromised 183 and 1600 and the eye watering 6200 with its huge data sets.

Looks to be in doubt now from the news. Who thought it was any kind of a good idea to put the only launche facility right in the path of all the rubbish weather coming in off the Atlantic?

Thanks Gina My instinct, based on experience is KISS, as I doubt my electronics abilities now. To that extent it might be simpler to run a USB3 to the obsy computer, but whether it would be effective is another matter If I had a cooling fan on the camera I could use an ABS box, but where to draw the air in from is another matter.

Thinking about an ASC and putting together a parts list while considering my options. So far: ASI178 1.55mm f/2 220 deg fisheye lens Dew heater[ 2.9mm Dome Now the options. As I see it there are two broad possibilities A "dumb" box with just USB3 and power connections to the obsy computer and RDP'd from the office, but the USB3 will need to be quite long as the logical position to give good coverage is on the west support post of the roof rails, at leat 5 metres, possibly more so a powered repeater needed. A "smart" box with a RPi running the capture software and RDP'd to the office computer. Is the latter feasible? Will a Win10 computer connect to an RPi running a flavour of Linux? Beyond this, to cool or not to cool? For cooling I'm thinking of using a cast ali box with the hot side of the peltier cooler in contact with it and possibly some fins on the outside. I'm only looking to reduce the camera temp to about 0 deg, so not looking to a water block. May need a metal block to support the camera at the right height. OK, that's enough for now, more questions later.

Picking up on John's third item, practical collimation tips would be very useful, for both observers and imagers. Especially for dealing with cantankerous RC type 'scopes.

Very interesting, never done more than H-alpha in galaxies before. But shouldn't this be in Imaging > Deep Sky?

True adaptive optics at a price we can afford. Mind you, firing a powerful laser into the sky to generate a guide star might be problematic.

Seen blooming plenty of times with old-style CCD video cameras. a bright light in the FoV would throw a spike usually in a downward direction.

That is really rather lovely Gina, big thumbs up from me.

Ah OK, I see what you mean now, though it's been years since I used APT, so had forgotten about the time stamp in the file name, or the version I used didn't have it then.

Ah. Well, Sequence does set up a new folder for when the data capture started, but beyond that I only see the usual "File Modified" data in the windows file explorer, rather than a specific time stamp on each file. Not sure if it's possible in either Maxim or Sequence. Maybe the authors reckon the windows time stamp is enough? Just had a look at my instance of Sequence, and the only option that I can see is where to save the files.

Not using Sequence for scheduling? Thought you had it working OK.

Thanks Ray. I'll have a look at my old laptop, currently I use it for RDP my telescope, but will switch that to another computer.

OK, I've registered with Zoom, but as I don't have a webcam on this computer will I be crippled in my access? Think my old lappy has a cam.

Oh hell Stu, that's really horrible, a sickener if ever there was one and a warning to us all. As others have said, a car body repair shop might be able to help, plus they will (Or should!) have the skills to do an "invisible" mend, plus drop an email to John at OOUK, see if he can supply a new end ring. and spider if the originals are beyond repair.

A lot more data will certainly help, and will enable you to bring out the colour. Depending on where you are within Bortle 4 you may not need any kind of LP filter. As Wim has said, your DSLR isn't sensitive enough to H-alpha to pick up the HII regions. They are there but need a larger scale and mono camera with a NB filter to bring them out.

According to the manual the Sesto Senso has a 0.7 micron step size. That's small!

ATM I've been running 10 min RGB and 5 min L on galaxies with my 1600 set to Max DR. The globs I've been doing I ran 5 min RGB (No L) to avoid burnt out cores. NB I tend to do at 10 min.

Oh, and managed to order a shed load (Geddit?) of T&G cladding from Wickes for delivery. Won't come till 10th June, but still it's a movement of sorts.

A small but significant update. The sparks came this morning and connected the 'lekky

OK Olly. As it happens I have given up on thinking about AO, too much hassle for dubious (In my case) rewards.