Yoddha

Hello,

M27 – the Dumbbell Nebula is the first discovered nebula of its kind – planetary nebulas. Charles Messier spotted it on July 12, 1764 and described it as a “nebula without star” that “appears of oval shape.” After that its nature became an object of various hypothesis. William Hershel suggested that it is place of new solar system formation… Which is “almost” right – it is a place solar system de-formation… But what are several billions of years and one small “de-“ between friends  In the bigger scale it is all about solar system evolution, which is tiny fraction of the galaxy evolution…

It is located around 1200 ly away from Earth in the constellation Vulpecula. According to the expansion speed measurements the nebula formation started between 15 000 and 10 000 years ago. A process when the core of the old red giant started to collapse generating more and more energy. In result the outer shells of the giant start to expand. The core was not heavy enough to start carbon or oxygen fusion, so it ends as compressed and super-hot white dwarf. The dwarf cools with the energy emissions in period of many billions of years making the expanding shell glowing. Much later than sooner it will become a black dwarf when the temperature drops to a planetary level… The currently the still white dwarf in M27 is considered to be around 5% of the Sun size, while still have 56% of its mass. The temperature is measured to be around 85 000K, which is sign for energy powerful enough to make the expanding gas bubble with size of ~1 ly shining. The features near and far from the center, the rays going out, the shock waves (barely visible on the image), show that nothing in the process of the nebula formation was and is smooth. It is interesting question if the obvious nebula “axis” (10 to 4 o’clock on the image) corresponds to the magnetic/rotation axis of the old star and or the dwarf? I didn’t manage to find information about it…

The Dumbbell Nebula is one of the most famous planetary nebulae among amateur astronomers because it is big and bright. It can be observed with almost every optical instrument. From small binoculars to big telescopes, showing spectacular views all the time to trained and untrained eye. With the imaging the case is same – satisfaction and different level of details with every setup that can gather photons

So, 8 years after my previous image, decided to use the shortest nights a week after the summer solstice to do a Dumbbell exercise (two weeks before the 258th anniversary of the nebula discovery). In three of the four nights, the sky was spectacular and it was pity that there were only 4 hours darkness (from twilight to twilight), but I don’t complain too much – four hours are four hours Managed to sum up 13 hours of data in various exposures and to practice HDR processing. It can take double the time easily, definitely is hungry for longer Ha integration, but like the result even on this stage. Hope you liked seeing it too

Total 13h in 4 nights - Ha (27x600s, 30x180s, 40x60s), OIII (25x600s, 30x180s, 40x60s). RC250 @ f/5.5, ASI2600MM, CEM60, Astrodon filters
Acquisition : APT - Astro Photography Tool, PHD2
Processing: PixInsight
Full details: https://www.astrobin.com/o8drmy/C/

Hi Vlaiv,

The APT's CCD Auto Flat determines what exposure time is needed to take the desired flat frame. It is not applying the flats to the light frames. It is part of the processing. APT is not doing processing...

When APT takes an image it stores the data unchanged on the disk. If you are using the Histogram it is stretching only the screen preview.

Hi Mariusz,

If the error is bigger APT will report wrong result. For small errors there is no significant problem...

Hello,

PAPS - Polar Align via PlateSolving is not showing accurate results, so the small update APT 4.01 is released to fix that. We have used the opportunity to include a few more fixes and minor new features.

Please update your APT to be ready for the next New Moon

The full list of novelties is available here:
http://www.astrophotography.app/new

Hi Myles,

Many thanks!

You can renew your key when you want, there is no matter when it has expired  The fee is 6 EUR and gives a full year access to the upgrades starting from the renewal date

Hello,

No problems reported in APT 4.00 so far  Don't forget to update your imaging computer for the next session  

Meanwhile we are forcing the work on the next beta...

Thank you for considering support to APT!

It is the latest stable version  

Many thanks for the feedback, Mariusz!

The new version of APT is here with many exciting features. The short list includes automatic focusing and refocusing for DSLR cameras. One more tab in the main screen – Summary Tab which defines a new level of APT usability. The top three are finished with PAPS – Polar Align via Plate Solving, implementation of the popular 3-point polar alignment. PAPS is using mathematical problem solution and code made by Rumen Bogdanovski, who made it for the INDIGO and AIN Imager projects.

The full list of novelties is available here: 
http://www.astrophotography.app/news

Some features of the full version are made available in the demo

Note: APT 3.88 is the last version that works under Windows XP.

UPDATE: 

PAPS - Polar Align via PlateSolving is not showing accurate results, so the small update APT 4.01 is released to fix that. We have used the opportunity to include a few more fixes and minor new features.

Please update your APT to be ready for the next New Moon

Hi Mariusz,

Many thanks for the good news!  We hope APT 4.00 to be available by Thursday or Friday. We are working on the tooltips, User's Guide and etc. 

Hi Brendan,

Many thanks! Sending you email shortly

Hi Brendan,

Could you give are try to make connection with 3.99.1? It it doesn't make connection please send me the log file as maybe there is need to report the problem to the ZWO team...

Could you give more info about the issues?

🤣

Ok, ok... Revealed am I... <(°.°)>

I hope that the problem is fixed now

Hi Mariusz,

Many thanks! PAPS should work fine in the southern hemisphere with the  3.99.1 update

Hello Friends,

APT 4.00 is very close!

We have just released the Release Candidate 3.99.1 which comes with PAPS - Polar Align via PlateSolving If you have an APT key give it a try and share your feedback!

Here are the details - https://aptforum.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5532

Just for the record, it was an "weekend" delay in communication... We are all only humans 🙂

I was very happy to meet in person so many friends after so much waiting!  Great thanks to all how made this show possible! 👏

Both with Maria will attend. Come to say "Hello" at our stand   Look for the APT logo  

Any question and suggestion about APT will be welcomed!

Thank you so much!

All GoTo++ and Auto Focus issues were solved in 3.93.1  Now we have 3.94 which is further step for the FocusCraft when digital cameras are used as well as fair number of new features. 

Take a look on the details at - https://aptforum.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5273

The download link is - https://www.astrophotography.app/betaversion.php

It happened that 3.92 was not complete cure for the old problems so 3.93.1 is released. The good news is that it is further step into automatic refocusing for DSLRs.

If you are using 3.91 or 3.92 make sure to upgrade to 3.93.1 

To avoid possible problems, please upgrade your APT 3.91 to 3.92. Apologies for the inconvenience! 

Hello,

I'll not start a new topic and will share the news here. A Preview/Beta APT 3.91 - FocusCraft, Refocusing for DSLRs and other improvements are available  

Take a look on the details at - https://aptforum.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5273&p=33868#p33868

The download link is - https://www.astrophotography.app/betaversion.php