Yoddha

Many thanks!

Hello, We are very happy to announce that APT has a new site https://www.astrophotography.app The old links should already redirect to the new place... There are bit more things to take care in the backend, but now this is the APT home Hope you find it useful and like it!

Absolutely agree! It can be described better what speeding a scope does 👍👌

Olly, I see that you have 10" ACF in the signature. Did you try to image with it or it is only for visual use?

Yes, I mean reducer Definitely I want to make the scope near to f/5 in order to gather more light faster

The price tag of C11 EdgeHD+Corrector is our of my desired budget... CEM60 will have to work harder 😄

Hi Wiu-Wiu, The Meade is on focus because it has f/8 version which can be speeded to under f/6... Is C11 outperforms 10" ACF significantly or the advantage is based on the aperture and weight?

The discussion is getting very interesting! The RC8 are very good scopes and all images with them are very good. However the 8" are too close to 130mm APO. What bothers me is that the images quality between RC8 and RC10 in majority is in favor of RC8 which makes me think that maybe 10" are too hard to be made with higher quality at this price tag??? Olly, your images shows exactly why I'm a refractor fan I see that you have 10" ACF in the signature. Did you try to image with it or it is only for visual use?

Hello, I want to make an upgrade in the next half year or so and for some time am reading opinions in the net, however can't get clear direction and will be very thankful to hear your opinions Here is the background. I'm pure imager (once or twice per year am making short visual walkthrough for friends that has no experience at all). The setup which am building is permanent located in a small obsy - a 2.2m Uniwesal dome (don't mess with them unless you like big troubles). The mount is CEM60 and my primary camera is QHY22 with set of Astrodon filters - 3nm narrowband and LRGB. For many years am a refractor guy 😜 In a parallel world where money are not a factor would like something like 180mm of that kind and bigger dome, but I am here and now... It is not possible to house/afford something bigger than 150mm which is not significant step over the 130mm I have... So am looking for alternatives There are two options that tear me apart and still can't find stable direction: 1. GSO clone RC 10" f/8 truss tube, detached focuser, with reducer that will make it ~ f/5.4 2. Meade ACF 10 f/8, possibly additional focuser, with reducer that will make it ~f/5.4 Both will be used with OAG. The collimation should not be a big issue - it is permeant setup and in worst case will require tuning once-twice per year... Am I right? My research started and continues with real images hunt in Astrobin (in addition to reading everything that can find in the forums). There are some spectacular images taken with both scopes! My considerations so far are: The RC pros with truss version - the cooling will be faster because the open design and fans, the temperature shift should be smaller. The cons are bit bigger stars, spikes. The ACF pros are the smaller obstruction, bit smaller stars and no spikes. The cons are slower cooling, bigger temperature shift, mirror flips ??? May need additional focuser, bit bigger price. In long term I want to use the scope for astrophotography for smaller targets. In very long term if one day I find myself tired of astrophotography 😲 am thinking for supernovas search or variable stars photometry... As I started will be very thankful to hear your opinions for those two models, for the links that I have missed, as well as the points and considerations I don't see or know 🙏🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️ P.S. I have excluded the RASA models because are not compatible with the filters I have and because they require manual filter change. Fast Newtonians are excluded because are also too fast for Astrodon and because it is hard to put Corrector + OAG + Filter wheel.

Many thanks MG!

Thank you Dinglem!

Hello, This nebula has many numbers and names - Westerhout 5, Sharpless 2-199, LBN 667, IC 1848, Soul Nebula or Embryo Nebula. It is a big object that gives spectacular show of light, colors and shapes, no matter what scope and camera are used. The emissions in various wavelengths combined with dark nebulae, pillars and bubbles of creation are almost hypnotizing at least for me The pillars which are so many here and are very beautiful, but the small bubbles floating in the blue light are like gems. The processing is pretty conservative – no hard push and no noise reduction in order to preserve the clarity and the faint details which are enormous for the modest 80mm . I’m sure that will give more play with the data as it is my biggest project so far and the object is fruitful for experiments. Definitely it is one of the pictures I like most so far and hope that you will enjoy it too. Total 25h 15 mins in 20 and 25 mins exposures. WO 80 FD + FR WO II x0.8, CEM60, QHY22, Astrodon 3nm, APT, PHD2, PI, PS. As usual the target triggers a quest to find more info about the area. The Soul Nebula is part of bigger complex formed with its famous neighbor – the Heart Nebula. They are made for same interstellar cloud with size of around 580 l.y. laying at 7500 l.y. from Earth in the Perseus spiral arm of our Milky Way. The matter in Soul nebula is about 100 l.y. across is being blown away from the young star clusters in it - the IC 1848/CR34 in the blue light in left part of the image and CR 632 and 634 right blue part. These clusters are made for very young stars, just few million years and began their lives with the last ancestors of Homo sapiens like Homo Habilis and Homo Erectus. The star formation is still in progress in the pillar structures which are up to 10 l.y. long, as well as in the bigger bubbles / globules. However there are many smaller bubbles called globulettes. Some of them will disappear because of photoevaporation – which is process of ionization and blowing caused by the ultraviolet radiation of the bight stars. Others are big enough to withstand these stellar winds, but still not big enough to give a life to a star – they are areas where brown dwarfs and big planetary objects like Jupiter are in process of forming. It is very interesting sky area with studies in different wave lengths still in progress, so more curious facts and news are just around the corner…

Thank you! I didn't change the colors intentionally. The background extraction made the color balance and later just enhanced the saturation. Most likely the combination of the filter and the big Moon has produced this color scheme

Last weekend got a clear night and decided to take first light with ZWO ASI533MC Pro. The Moon was quite near to full, but still was giving around 1h 30 minutes darkness - good chance to make some tests of the ZWO Duo-Band Filter too. Additional performed test was the usage under the skies of APT's support for the ZWO native driver As target picked-up an object that is well known with idea that can show the performance of the camera itself. BTW I have never imaged the Rosette so far, and it is still in my list for a narrowband attempt The first revision is comparison of single frames, auto stretched - one when the Moon was high above the horizon, the second was few minutes after its setting. The second revision the processed image taking all available frames 50 with Moon and 11 without. Used is the unity gain for the camera - Gain 100, Offset 70. Having some experience with DSLRs I'm very happy with the results from ZWO ASI533MC Pro. No darks or bias frames are applied! Just dithering and cooling to -20C In the net saw some opinions that this camera is good entry level for images coming from DSLRs. There is need to make few serious sessions without Moon, however on this stage, my opinion is that ASI533MC Pro is great OSC that can give very good data when there is no time to make LRGB with mono camera. My plan is to use it as main imager during astro parties

Hi Neil, Thank you for your interest! There is no such checklist as APT usage depends on the used setup. Usually the initial tests could be made with the default setting Of course if you have a question or suggestion the fastest way to contact me is in the APT's forum

Hello, APT DC for Android is updated to 1.9 https://www.ideiki.com/astro/MobileApps.aspx 2019/03/26 - v1.9 New features and fixes -Added NB Time - Narrow Band time (for imaging with NB filters) -Added option to show more data for the current location -Fixed calculations in the day of solstice -Fixed Moon rise wrong calculation in rare cases -Fixed calculations in the day of Daylight Saving change

Many thanks Carole!

Thank you Andy!

Many thanks! Definitely will be used for the splash screen :)

Many thanks, Grant!

Many thanks, Adam!

Hello, Sh2-132, also named the Lion nebula is 10,000 to 12,000 light-years away, located in the Perseus arm of our Galaxy, with a size of more than 250 light years. On our sky is located on the border between the constellations of Cepheus and Lacerta. It is interesting that this image contains two Wolf-Rayet stars - WR 153ab near the "wall" structure in the lion's head an WR 152 in the blue dominated part of the nebula. The Wolf-Rayet stars are very big, bight and hot stars with strong solar winds. These winds are so strong that eject huge amount of mass from the stars - something like 10 Sun masses per million years. The extreme nature of the Wolf-Rayet stars always dominate the nearby regions and lightening the surrounding area. In this case there are two of them and they are helped from 5 small open clusters of young stars to show us something very beautiful. This project is my personal integration time record - 20h 55min :) The object is quite faint, but is still in reach for the workhorse about wider fields - the trusty 80mm refractor. Total 20h 55min - WO 80FD, QHY22, Ha+OIII, CEM60 APT, PHD2, PI, PS Here is the processed Ha stack. Posting it as there are a lot of interesting details :)

Hello, Cygnus is amazing source of interesting objects, so decided to spend a third summer in row on projects in this constellation. Looking on widefield images selected few regions and digging into the catalogs narrowed the starting point for this image to be the NGC 6914. The Ha version of the image explains why decided to name it Yin-Yang :) Total 8h 44min - WO 80FD, QHY22, Ha+RGB, APT, PHD2, PI, PS. It is also the first light of the my new mount CEM60. Kind of hard first light because am facing some problems, but am sure that will fix them very soon with the iOptron support :) In fact identifying the objects in the image is a real hunt 🤪 The left blue nebula near the center is NGC 6914, the one in right is vdB132, more right and bit up is vdB131. All these blue nebulae are surrounded from the LDNs 899 (left part) 897 (right till the frame border). The part of the emission nebula bellow the LDNs to right are LBN 218 and 273. The emission in the left and upper part of the frame should be LBN 292, but is possible some parts of it to be cataloged as separate numbers... Let add one more catalog in the mix The small comma like sign under vdB131 is the bipolar planetary nebula Parsamian 22. The whole region is 6000 l.y. away and is considered that the emission red part is lit by the ultraviolet light of very hot stars part of the Cygnus OB2 association. These stars are ionizing the atomic hydrogen gas.

Many thanks! We will add it in 3.80 or 3.90, just have to finally address some given promises Like native ZWO support

APT 3.70 is here! It comes with access to completely new technologies for controlling astro gear – INDIGO / INDI, possibility to use RaspberryPi computers and the commercial products based on them - ZWO ASIAir, QHYCCD StarMaster, StellarMate. Integrated is the Lacerta’s FBC- Flat Box Controller. Added is support for GPS devices and smartphones. To finish the summary will mention the Keys Thingy – another way to enter data without keyboard in the dark. The usual list of the changes is available here: http://www.astrophotography.app/news