Yoddha

1 hour ago, tooth_dr said:

Outstanding Ivo, thanks for sharing.

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.

 APT DC is updated to 1.8. Fixes the calculations in the Daylight Saving period.

APT DC was updated to version 1.7

2019/01/02 - v1.7 Upgrade
-Added support for Android 9
-Added better location coordinates detecting
-Updated design

More info and links at: https://www.ideiki.com/astro/MobileApps.aspx

Many thanks! You are welcome anytime

Interesting idea! We will explore it for the desktop application first

12 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I hate to say this but... it doesn't do very much does it? I get the same from Clear Outside app and that tells me the weather as well.

Hi Neil,

It is matter of taste I prefer to use other forecast and this app fits my needs to check if particular night has enough time for imaging

Also it was fun to build it (in fact my wife made the Android version, I built the iOS). It is absolutely free - no ads, no tracking or marketing data gathering. If it is useful for somebody - great! If it is not - nothing bad is happening It is a gift for the community - wanted or unwanted

BTW I also use it for a fast way to see my GPS coordinates  

12 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Hi, I'm having trouble with the app on both my devices. I've got a saved location set up on both and attempt to switch to it and what ever I try, refresh, save and calc etc, my DSD times are N/A. The app is up to date, and have tried with location services on or off.

6.1 and 4.3

Anything you can suggest I try please?

Hello,

The Moon is big now and there is no absolute darkness... Could you try to change the date using Prev/Next or by tapping on the date?

It has iOS version too The Android version was released first and that is the reason to have two topic here...

APT DC was just updated

2018/08/05 - v1.6 Upgrade
-Added better location coordinates detecting

More info and links at: https://www.ideiki.com/astro/MobileApps.aspx

APT DC was updated to 1.5 and now supports Androids back to 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich)

Hello,

The iOS version in final tests phase

Many thanks David!

Hi Frank,

Thank you for the feedback!

A full port of APT to mobile platform is not possible, however some alternatives are considered in a bit longer term

Many thanks!

All times are local. APT DC takes the time zone from the phone.

What is Full ADT? The DSD is taking into account the Moon...

Hi David,

Could you make a screenshot (usually by holding Power and Volume Down buttons pressed in same time) and take a look which version of Android is running on your A5?

Hi David,

Many thanks! We will try to make a simulation for A5. On the test Moto here it is working!?!? Does it behaves same for all 3 locations? ( Just to exclude copy-paste error ) 

Cheers! You are getting virtual beer

Please share feedback! 

Hello, 

We have just released our first mobile app - APT Darkness Clock (APT DC) which allow to calculate the Deep Sky Darkness (DSD) time for selected night.

For link and QR code take a look here:

https://www.ideiki.com/astro/MobileApps.aspx

 Or navigate directly here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.distinct_solutions.aptcalc

Hope you will find the app useful

David, take a look on the LiveView parameters in the camera menu. If Face detection is enabled then there is no Zoom

Don't get me wrong I don't say that there is no need to implement the compensation in the controller/driver... Just if the imaging application is capable I would use it...

BTW keep in mind that optics are inert and react relatively slow to the temperature changes. Wind gust will give rapid changes of the temperature reading, but this doesn't mean that focus is changing. A good approach is to average the readings for certain period and then to decide if there is need to change the focus

Thanks Mick!

As I know all focusers that has temperature sensor are offering in driver/controller temperature compensation, but my opinion is that the right place is in the imaging application, because the action can be made between the exposures