Pompey Monkey

Passion friut! I quite like that pallet.

I know you probably have been told this, but a 1000 mm telescope at very close to the manufacturers (optimistic) payload capacity of an heq5 is always going to give you headaches. The pain of paying once for a better mount (eq6 minimum), while intense, will fade into the past and soon forgotten about when it works every time. The chronic discomfort of having to constantly fettle your current mount to perform to your satisfsction will, however, slowly sap at your soul for as long as you continue using it with that scope.

I think that you need to take the Earth's orbital velocity (approx 30 km/s IIRC) into account in your calculations. In fact, on the (simplistic, but not unreasonable) assumption that the line of sight (LOS) between the star and target is sweeping across the solar system at the same speed as the orbital velocity of the asteroid, I think we actually caught up and overtook the shadow! There is also the Earth's surface rotational velocity to factor in, although this is a lot slower than our orbit. And what about the relative motion between the Solar system and the occulted star? I'd hazard a guess that this is pretty small, but someone, somewhere, has probably included it in their calculations...

I think we are being spammed with "new members". Apologies if this has already been sorted out.

I agree, at least on the basics: I'd encorage anyone to least learn some of the constellations before heading out into cold to bury their face into a computer screen...

The star images taken with the 200 mm lens are elongated by camera shake. However, the spikes in the Tak image show definite chromatic abberation which is very much an optical effect. I think the two issues are completely unrelated. Did you have a completley unobstructed view of the target? A washing line or telephone cable in the line of sight could cause this effecl.

If you are seeing "lower order" artefacts in your images, it means that you are doing great!

You are welcome. Processing image data is not easy for me. I am only learing how to "see" what is going on in an image after over five years! The technical side of aquisition is totally clear to me, as I have an engineering background. However, knowing what to do with the data to make a nice image is a struggle for me. I'm getting there. lol. Patience is soooo important in this hobby, as there is so much to learn, but you will be rewarded if you persevere! You are off to a great start :)

You have some nioce data going on. A quick ABE and a (small) stretch in Pixinsight:

I don't have a Mesu, but I applaud your efforts to get away from USB connections. Unless captive at both ends, the connector technology is pretty much unsuitable for moving parts. Alas, we have all been pushed down this route for convenience and/or cost over the years. Now we are stuck with it!

You need to be pointing somewhere near the celestial equator for the calibration to work (after polar alignment, of course). Pointing at the celestial pole to calibrate, like you were, will give wildly inaccurate results. Because maths. Good luck!

You should do...maybe then we'll get some clear skies! 🤣

Yes, the blue is interesing!

The chips are in the cables! So no need to disassemble anything

The easiest remedy for this is to only use USB to serial adapters with FTDI chips, NOT the Prolific brand. FTDI "remembers" the correct COM port regardless of which USB socket is used, while Prolific doen't. Believe it or not, the reasons are due to hisitorical issues with IPR piracy!

The import duty will be calculated based on the "declared value" of the package. 😇

Thanks for the heads-up.

In that case, surely it's a 304.8 mm f6? 😇

Much more civilised than Godwin's Law!

And trousers.

I saw this on telly once. It used to happen quite a bit. I have thought about randomly removing a star from each of my images for this very purpose. But then I realised that no-one would want to rip them off anyway....

Why did you have to bring up chains to complicate matters further? That's just not cricket, old chap!

Nah! You should just roll over and give them their 0.454 kg of flesh...

I'm getting increasingly peeved at constantly having to swap between metric and imperial components, nuts, bolts, and tools on my rigs. It can really interrupt my train of thought while assembling stuff. And, as for planning how to make stuff that includes both measurement systems, it's nigh-on impossible. Just venting!

This is particularly applicable with many short sub-exposures compared to fewer longer ones. So it's another win for CMOS. BTW the extra 8 bits of resolution would require a minimum of 256 subs - that's a lot of storage and CPU demand.