Thalestris24

Just now, Supernova74 said:

You could always try Astrobuyandsell also however kind agree of last post very limited on weight capacity time you put small refractor on that’s your lot most probably alternative an preowned skywatcher EQ5 is a cracking mount will hold around 13kg. That should do the job thay go for around £300-350 on the preowned market and do come up for sale quite often 

Do you have one? How is it for you? No, I want something small and light - but slightly better than a Star Adventurer (which I have but it's never worked properly for me and, in some respects, is hard to use anyway). Flo sell these iOptron's and I'd get a new one.

Thanks

Louise

Just now, MarkAR said:

Hi Louise, I don't have one but the payload of 5Kg is something to be careful with.  As long as you don't overload it it sounds like it'll be fine.

Thanks for the comment but I really want to hear from someone who has/used one.

Louise

This ioptron : https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ioptron-mounts/ioptron-smarteq-pro-goto-equatorial-mount.html#specifications

Any pros/cons re imaging with it (small frac)?

Thanks 🙂 

Louise

2 hours ago, Mike JW said:

Always amazed by what you achieve from your site. Mike

Thanks, though my images aren't very good. I've built a Lowspec 2 spectrometer and, if I can get it working, I'll probably just do some spectroscopy instead. Failing that, I'll abandon this hobby altogether.

Regards

Louise

A few stars more from 16th April:

NGC6743 8x120s

NGC6823 4x180s crop

NGC6834 5x120s crop

NGC6885 3x120s

NGC6940 3 x 120s

Louise

1 minute ago, Paul Gerlach said:

Thanks for your comments and advice. A DC to DC converter will mean an additional board. I already have two (DC to AC and the Servo trigger) and want to keep things compact. But I'll have a look. The 12 volt power supply will come from a adapter plugged into the mains.
I've seen some schematics with the 7805 and some capacitors on Google.

Printing with ASA can be a bit challenging. An enclosure is a good start. Bed temperature 80 - 90 degrees Celcius, First two layer at 250 degrees then gradually drop it to 235 - 240 degrees and small amount of fan (15-20%) just to mix the warm air a bit. With large objects I sometimes use a raft. It lifts the object from the hot bed so there is less temperature difference between to and bottom. I print on a flex bed with a scuffed sheet of PEI.

Hi Paul, if you don't need much current (<=100mA) then the little 78L05 will do There may be other alternatives if you need higher current.
https://components101.com/78l05-pinout-equivalent-datasheet

Louise
 

3 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Four years on and you are still posting in the 'Getting Started with Imaging' section though! 😇

Thanks for the mentions. One reason I started with using platesolving was because I was unable to do a proper Polar or star alignment. I've always been severely limited by only being able to image via an open window in my flat, and under terrible skies with awful LP! I can never produce decent long exposure images from here, not even with narrowband 😞 Nowadays, I just do short exposure live stacking with SharpCap and a mono camera, but still use platesolving to locate targets.

Louise

2 minutes ago, Gregj888 said:

Louise, thank you and great work on your build.

 

It's still a work in progress and put to one side for now

1 minute ago, Gregj888 said:

Though I have visited often over the years, just joined and my first post here in the Lounge. 

First, Paul.  the 7805 acts like a variable resistor to cut the voltage.  that means it's a bit of a power hog.  Fine if plugged into the mains not so good on batteries.  EBAY has a number of small DC to DC high efficiency converters that are cheap.  I did a review on one a while back and can find a link if you need it.

Posting here because I started a LowSpec print.  New to 3D printing and my first ASA print (slider block) took a few tries.  Bumped up the top and bottom thicknesses.  Finished the bottom then warped and popped off.  Printing the turret and lens holders now.

Ender 3 Pro in a DIY (PVC pip enclosure.

Great thread, thanks all...

Good luck with your build!

Louise

These are taken with my TS APO 80mm and GPCAM3 178M, mount = Heq5. All from April 21st. Not quite first light with the 183M but I've not done much imaging at all this year so far. Captured in SharpCap Pro 3.2, 64 bit. Stacked with a separate master flat in dss, tweaked a bit in Paint.NET  

M27 3 x 189s resized to 40%

M56 2x120s resized to 40%

M57 10 x 120s resized to 40%

M57 crop

NGC6834 4x120s + 30x30s resized to 40%

NGC6834 crop

NGC6885 5x180s

NGC6940 10x180s

Some subs seem to have artefacts which are probably a flats issue or could be local LP gradients.

Louise

9 minutes ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

Yes, some people have suggested it's actually the tripod that's the weakest link. We also don't know what the quality control like, perhaps some are more precisely machined than others?

I never even bothered trying the rubbish aluminium tripod - put it straight on a HEQ5 one

Louise

30 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

For this method - it does not really matter that black body only approximates real stars. I just needed some sort of spectra that:

a) is well defined so I can calculate exact color information in CIEXYZ color space and values that will be obtained by sensor/filter combination for source giving off that spectrum.

b) It has good enough spread in color space (issue with real stars is that most of the stars are in very narrow range of temperatures and extremes like very hot stars are rare and chances that we'll find them in the image are slim)

c) colors that we work with are colors that we are likely to encounter in astrophotography - or close to those colors

I agree that getting accurate color is not easy - but this is because we don't yet have developed workflow nor tools to do it. Removing background light pollution gradients is not easy task either, but once tools are available and people figure out how to incorporate those into their processing workflow - we start getting nicer images.

Theory of color matching exists for many years now (CIE XYZ color space was developed in 1931) - we just need to sensibly apply it to astrophotograpy and we will get accurate colors.

it was just late night musing on my part! 😄 

Louise

Most stars aren't exactly black bodies cf spectrometry. I feel the pursuit of some sort of 'accurate' colour rendering in astrophotography is a neverending minefield - perhaps akin to a Mandelbrot Set!! Don't forget to take into account atmospheric extinction, monitor calibration, ambient light, and what your eyes actually see (how are you going to know for sure?). Surely a simple, approximately accurate but satisfying, pretty, coloured picture will do the job? Will anybody really care that much otherwise? Me, I mostly stick to monochrome/luminance these days - so much easier, especially when life is so short!

Louise

9 hours ago, Merlin66 said:

What's the latest status on the various LowSpec builds?

Been quiet for a while.

 

I'm afraid mine's been put to one side for the moment.

Louise

Hi again LOL221

You may also find this thread of interest

Louise

Hi LOL221

The multispectral filter you mentioned would do if that's the only one you can get to fit your camera. I don't have a Nikon but I think I've seen clip filters for them - Astronomik, STC? 

However, I think you'll struggle with your alt-az setup. You're going to be limited to ~30s exposures. I think you'll have to take a lot of 30s exposures...

Do post some of your images 

Louise

1 minute ago, JamesF said:

It's only a simple 80mm achro.  I can't see thermal problems being the cause.

James

Oh ok - sorry, I should have read it more carefully... 

3 minutes ago, Notty said:

Yes, sorry I think I called it “control cc’d gain” towards the beginning of my text. I’ve tried with and without it checked.

I got this from the apt forum

"If Settings->CCD->Manage Gain is unchecked APT will not touch the gain value and will leave the ASCOM driver to take care. If the option is checked then APT will use the gain values in Settings->Filter Wheel and Camera tab if they are not empty and if the ASCOM driver accepts setting gain value from APT."

So looks like it's  normally set in the Ascom driver

11 minutes ago, JamesF said:

It was.  It lives in the observatory all the time.

James

But maybe the ambient temperature dropped rapidly? If it's a biggish triplet it can still take a while to stabilise.

Louise

ps this is just an idea - I don't have any great expertise 🙂 

47 minutes ago, Notty said:

Hello. Silly question, with a straightforward solution I hope, but I'm controlling from APT. I have the option to control ccd gain checked in my ccd settings tab, which I am led to believe means I can specify gain and offset per filter in the filter wheel settings, which I have done (138 gain which I understand to be unity and offset 50) but when I execute a plan it is using zero offset.  I unchecked the box in settings to see if I could access the ASCOM settings for the camera, which I've seen screenshots for a proprietary looking window of settings with a big ZWO label on, but I just get a simple APT option box with 2 settings on, one is "black point offset" the other some usb setting or other.

as the function in APT isn't working as advertised anyone know how else I can access that ZWO ascom settings window please? Thank you

Hi

Have you got the 'manage gain' option checked under settings->ccd ?

Looks a bit like thermals to me - was the scope temperature stabilised?

Louise

Some lovely and recent images of Jupiter from Juno Mission:

https://www.space.com/stunning-image-of-jupiter-from-nasa-juno.html?fbclid=IwAR3OJ3gln5LPVzZHbN1c8r6_ivt4f0z97dJi9LAyEzdoIbAZtc2Ainv7fvU

Louise

2 hours ago, Stu said:

I think there will be plenty of examples of this Louise. Fewer planes flying is bound to mean clearer skies.

My journey time to work has dropped from just over an hour to about 50 mins, and fuel consumption has gone up.

Other lovely examples like this; fish and dolphins appearing in the canals of Venice now the boats have stopped churning up the sediment. Perhaps we will all find a different, better way of life once we are through this?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/world/dolphins-venice-canals-coronavirus-lockdown-italy-a4390686.html%3famp

Unfortunately, it hasn't affected the cloud 😞 Sigh.

Louise

2 hours ago, Saganite said:

And perhaps we will appreciate and adhere to the improvements. I certainly hope so !

Doubtful, unfortunately, but can enjoy the lower air pollution here in the city, while it lasts!

Louise

I noticed that the floodlit sports complex near me turned the lights off early. When I checked it out online it closed at 8pm until further notice. As it normally lights up the sky for miles around from dusk until around 10:30pm, it's a positive side effect for me, arising from the current anti Covid-19 measures. Perhaps other people are also experiencing some positive side effects?

Louise