Pompey Monkey

4 minutes ago, Rodd said:

  I think it will important to agree on a camera orientation so as to minimize the loss of FOV during registration (either 90 degrees of 180 degrees would be easiest).  I have asked the creators of PI how to add long focal length data into smaller focal length, wider FOV images, and have not yet received an answer--it seems not to be as straight forward as it is in Photoshop.  So for my image, I will be restricted to the smallest FOV.  If that will be true for others, it would be helpful to choose a target based on the framing in the smallest FOV.

Rodd

Star registration will do a <ahem> stellar job of this.

1 hour ago, Xplode said:

Thank you for all the kind comments ☺️

Pompey Monkey: I will definitely make a poster of this!

I stretched the astrobin image out over nearly three monitors! It's a brilliant image.

When you get it printed, make sure to find someone who will help you get the best results.

20 hours ago, Xplode said:

This is our first mosaic from SkyEyE Observatory with our new telescope, a 14,5" reflector.

Ola Skarpen did most of the editing while i did the stacking and stitching
It was a lot of work getting the panels aligned and stretched exactly the same, but it was definitely worth the efford.

Gear:
AG Optical Convergent FA14 14.5" reflector (1855mm/f5)
10 Micron GM2000
Optec Gemini focusing rotator
Moravian G3-16200 (pixel scale 0.67")
ZWO ASI174MM Mini (OAG)

Exposures
Chroma Ha 3nm 50mm: 101x600" bin 1x1
Baader OIII 2" 8.5nm: 48x600" bin 2x2
Baader SII 2" 7nm: 70x600" bin 2x2
Total time 36,7 hours shared between the 4 panels. 
 

Click for full resolution

Detail from the 100% image

Marvelous! You should put that wall on your wall!

That's great.

I'd better get up to speed with my processing. I've got no more excuses!

On 03/10/2019 at 23:48, dtastro said:

Can anyone suggest a reducer for the Esprit 80ED?

I tried the tsred279 on my Esprit 80ed, which was "supposed" to work with the matching adaptor. However, by the time I had the backfocus getting to the right place, it wasn't  possible to wind the draw tube far enough in to get focus! 

Shame,  because the additional fov it was giving me made a heck of a difference! 

Rodd - I completely agree.

But it all depends on the rejection criteria that you set. As the bulk of your subs are already at a high level of quality, you are still adding useful information to the image.

I do like the comparison between the stacks - it shows a lot. Is it possible to do a GIF or animation of one over the other?

I really like your rendition.

It also shows that a "budget" telescope can produce excellent results!

The filters need to be large enough to cover your sensor. If you had a 40mm chip, then you would need the 2 inch filters.

But as your chip is about 22mm across the diagonal, then you will be fine with your 36mm filters.

Good stuff.

Equatorial mounts can, and do, put the eyepiece in an awkward position. 

Does the scope come with a 90 or 45 degree star-diagonal? You may not be able to rotate the telescope tube, but you should be able to rotate the diagonal to get the eyepiece in a better position. 

Edit. It is a reflector. Ignore me! Lol.

What camera are you (trying to) use?

If you post a picture of the camera mounted to the 'scope, it might just be obvious what's going on to someone here

8 minutes ago, msacco said:

That is true of course, and I do plan on getting around 32 GB RAM, but specifically with pixinsight, it seems like the amount of threads is very useful, as stacking process for each individual image is happening on a thread, so I think that should generally be the biggest factor.

PI really makes use of threads and RAM for a lot of processes. About a year ago, I bought a second-hand dual-Xeon server. It's got two Xeon X5690 hex core multithreading CPUs and 96 GB DDR3 ECC RAM.

I made a 32 GB RAM drive and configured PI to use it as multiple swaps. It flies!!!

Cost was under £300.

1 hour ago, carastro said:

Mercury is even smaller than Venus and difficult enough to see when  it is dark let alone during the daytime and you normally need a telescope or binoculars to see it unless you have VERY good eye sight.  I have seen Venus through a very powerful telescope during the daytime, but it was impossible to see with the naked eye. 

I can understand why you are trying to work it out, but take it from experienced amateur astronomers.  It does look like lens flare in the first one, but not so much the second one.  Maybe you got a balloon flying in the sky as it is getting smaller in each photo, and in front of the cloud in the 2nd photo. 

Carole 

Carole, 

It is actually easy to see Venus with the naked eye in full daylight, as long as you know where and when to look.

The way I first did it was when Venus was close to maximum elongation rising before the Sun (i.e. "morning star"). The trick was to stand in the same place and remember where it was in relation to a building or tree. I did this every hour or so and could see the planet from dawn through to past 1400 GMT.

I've also heard that it's possible to see Jupiter in the daytime, but I've not managed it yet!

As I understand it, 36mm filters have been produced to meet the demands of imagers using the very popular KAF 8300 chip based cameras. The 8300 is only 0.6mm bigger in the diagonal.

I guess it's down to how close you can get the filters to the chip...

3 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

I can't really comment on filter wheel from experience - I use filter drawer with my setup. I do know however that ASI1600 can get away with 1.25" filters if mounted fairly close to the sensor and I would choose filter wheel not based on size of filters but rather mechanical quality. You want your filter wheel to be precise so you don't have to take flats every time. This means that it should repeat exact position every time. Any small shift in filter position will move dust shadows and you won't be able to get good calibration.

Flattener is something that you will need for larger sensors in order to have good stars all the way to the edge.

I've never had a real problem with dust bunnies from the filters, it's usually somewhere else in the imaging train. In fact, like others on SGL, I usually just use the luminance flat to correct all my subs.

FWIW, i had the SX 7 position usb filter wheel. The biggest problem with that one is the janky usb connection diectly on the circuit board, but that's another story!

Yes, you  need the flattener. I would also suggest that the 36mm filters will match the ASI1600mm better.

I can also vouch for the heq5/Esprit 80ED combo. My mount is not modded at all and I image at 2.8"pp: I was rejecting about 15 to 20% of my subs, as long as i avoided imaging around the point where the scope balance flips over (usually around, or just past, the meridian).

Meh...

I emailed Baader last year to see if they would be releasing the ultra-narrowband filters in 36 mm unmounted format. They said that they had no plans to do so and consequently I ended up spending just shy of 2-grand (pounds, not Euros!) on a set of Chroma 3 nm's

Ho-hum....  

14 hours ago, MarkRadice said:

The only downside to observing from Mt Teide is that our U.K. skies now seem so poor in comparison. 

So true. After visiting a few dark sites in France,  Spain and La palma, I've all but given up on imaging from the murky and light polluted south coast!

I'm  in the fortunate position of being able to afford a remote shed at E-Eye in Spain with a friend. We're  setting up there in September.

I tried the TS279red with my Esprit 80 last year, including the special low profile M74 (?) to M48 adapter from Telescope Austria https://teleskop-austria.at/M74nM48p_M74neg-M48posFeingewinde-Adapter-um-den-TS-079x-Reducer 

However after many hours finding the correct backfocus distance, I then found that I couldn't move the drawtube far enough in to get focus!

YMMV, but for me, some things are just not meant to be

59 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

You mean this example (from Buil's page you linked to)? :

Here is counter example that I did in like 1 minute:

Just because left image looks pixelated and the right one does not - that does not mean that there is actual recovery of detail using this method. Image is misleading because left image was enlarged to match scale of right image by using nearest neighbor filtering. I produced my example by using same image - one was just enlarged (nearest neighbor) to show "pixels" while other one was rescaled using other interpolation method.

Although right image looks "smoother" and with "more resolution" - it is in fact the same image.

True test for drizzle in amateur setups can be easily performed. One should take any set of dithered images, and bin them (in software) to get to stage where there is adequate under sampling. One should then proceed as follows:

- do drizzle stacking of such set

- do comparison stack that will be made by scaling up each sub by drizzle factor prior to stacking, and then stack those subs.

Compare two for resolution - by both visual inspection (and while at it - check SNR of each) and by means of star FWHM in each image. One with lower FWHM should be "more resolved".

Increased information or not, I know which image looks better to me.

I'm deliberately not going to quote anyone on this, because I don't want to offend. But I DO have a strong opinion on this matter:

I think that if you don't collect your own sand and trace minerals, build a kiln, produce your own blanks, grind and polish your own mirror, devise a new method for testing the optics using a hand made light-blub powered by home made batteries*, <pause for breath> smelt the steel to make your own lathe to produce your own bearings (do you know how much science and effort goes into making accurate ball-bearings?), develop your own light sensitive semiconductors and the associated digital electronics (not to mention programming the thing to work)**... then you are not worthy of any recognition at all.

We are all standing on the shoulders of giants. If you want to be masochistic about life, fair enough. Personally, I enjoy the rich pickings of modern society!  Plus I've worked blinking hard to get to the point where I can set up a remote observatory - does that effort count for nowt too?

*Gotta make your own copper wire (from ore that you prospected yourself) and insulation too..

**I could go on,  but you get the idea

On 04/06/2019 at 14:20, daemon said:

Anyone have any thoughts on imaging with a CCD/CMOS camera on the 150PDS?

I'm currently using an un-modded Nikon D5300 DSLR which is great for starting out, but it does get very noisy and an upgrade could be on the horizon.

I am tempted by the ZWO ASI1600MM Mono with all the appropriate LRGB and narrowband filters. I'm assuming 1.25" should be okay but happy to hear opinions.

I would keep the DSLR as an OSC option, but I like the idea of the sharpness of mono imaging despite the extra capture time needed with the different filters.

I've also recently bought another scope (SW Evostar 80ED) to have a Refractor option. I'm wondering how the ASI1600 would go with that too.

Does anyone have similar set-ups or opinions?

Cheers,

Daemon

 

My rosette was done with a KAF8300 mono CCD chip, through Baader RGB and 7nm Ha filters, all plugged into the 150 PDS and SW CC.

If that helps..?  

If you get on better with PI, then use it!

Everybodies brains are wired a bit differently, some are more attuned to the PS workflow while others work better with PI. It's good that we have a choice.

On 28/05/2019 at 08:49, AbsolutelyN said:

Thanks for the info here. I must admit as nice as f/4.1 would be I think I'm currently leaning towards an Esprit 80 at f/5 rather than risking a very expensive reducer that could be tricky to get right and potentially unknown image circle size. 

You still might have "fun" getting the spacing correct with the 80... 

Wrong thread!

On 13/05/2019 at 23:23, LR Watanabe said:

Blimey, nicely done!If that’s what I can expect on a Bortle 3/4/5 zone, I wonder what I can see on a 1 zone! (With a proper filter, of course)

Actually, I got the Bortle scale wrong- I should have written 5/6!