Skipper Billy

At 22.47 last night it was total cloud cover and raining. The sky lit up bright green for 2 - 3 seconds and almost immediately the ground shook for 3 - 4 seconds. The feeling was not the sound that you hear and feel in your chest of thunder but a deep vibration felt more through the feet. There was no lightening shown on the lightning detection map sites and nothing on the earth tremor sites. I looked at the frames from my all sky camera and found this - all the frames before and after are dark. Looking at the local FB pages today it was witnessed and felt over a very large area - roughly the area shown on the attached map and everyone seems to have experienced a similar intensity. Any ideas ???? In the photo North is at the top. On the map the area bound in black is the area it has been widely reported in and the red star is where my camera is.

A million thanks - I will try it now!

Just annoying esp. after waiting for 3 weeks for it to turn up!

Just a heads up - I bought the relay board detailed in the last post above (Chips-Fans). I have been asking on a regular basis for the software for over a fortnight and despite the occasional email saying yes we send it be email - nothing has been received. Useless without it and probably useless with it - it connects and disconnects if I lightly touch the USB lead connection. If anyone has managed to get the software or has a link to it I would be very grateful if you could share it??

Would be even better without that hill in the way! 😉 Its quite deceptive as its a very wide angle lens - that a 1000 foot hill just half a mile away. The trees are the bottom of our garden. But we cannae travel and I had enjoyed a dram in any case.

and a single frame ......

Three and a half hours of 20 second images compressed into a 30 second timelapse. Taken last night from the West Coast of Scotland.

I am about 20 miles south of you - keep your camera going its raging just now (01.42hrs) !!!

Have you downloaded and installed the latest Atik bundle ??? https://www.atik-cameras.com/software-downloads/ Is it your imaging software that's reporting the wrong number ??

Thanks guys.

I quite enjoy the power cuts now - my rig keeps on bimbling away and the few house lights in the area are out! Almost any of these will do the job https://www.tayna.co.uk/leisure-batteries/ Add one of these and you are good to go https://www.amazon.co.uk/CTEK-MXS-5-0-Reconditions-Motorcycle/dp/B00FC42HAA

We too suffer from power cuts - its a pain!!! I took a slightly different route - everything in the observatory is powered by a 12volt 150 ah leisure battery - enough to run my rig for at least 2 full nights. This is kept charged by a smart charger that is just left on all the time. The other benefit is that the battery supplies nice smooth clean power.

Just realised I posted to wrong version!!! This is the fully processed version!! Rosette tiff.tif

I really don't think that's a good idea. The tension on the grub screws is critical to stop the draw tube slipping and with a heavy rig the difference between sufficient tension and cracking the ceramic bearings is less than a quarter of a turn. To achieve the correct tension and hold the bracket in place would require the bolts to be precisely the correct length - to within a few microns !! You could always drill and tap the body of the focuser to fix into (Think resale value!) or better still make some 90º brackets and use the hold down bolts that fasten the focuser to the OTA. I would strongly counsel against replacing the grub screws with bolts.

3rd January 2021 - The Rosette Nebula - NGC2237 - Imaged in LRGB close to the 85% moon so this was a challenge to process. 90 mins each RGB binned 2x2 and just 1 hour Lum binned 1x1 (it clouded over). 4" frac, Atik 16200. Processed entirely in Pixinsight. CC very welcome. Full res here - ROSETTE_NEBULA.tif

Just a quick update in case anyone else has the same issues - these settings work for me.... Many thanks to everyone who assisted. I was pulling out what little hair I have left!!!!!

Thanks old-eyes - will try that if the first suggestions doesn't work. I am easily confused !!

Cheers. Will try that tonight. All the best. David

PS - I should add that I don't really understand which piece of software is doing what nor do I understand about over pole and under pole. I am fairly sure the above has worked well in the past - the only thing that has changed is that the PC has been replaced and the disc image transferred from one machine to the other. IE - please treat me like an idiot and keep it simple !! 😉

I thought I had this sussed but last night as the target approached the Meridian the mount just stopped tracking. No flip - no nothing. PHD2 went wild as it couldn't issue commands. These are my settings in NINA and SiTech. Any thoughts ????

IC443 - the Jellyfish Nebula. Imaged over the 1st and 2nd January 2021. 2.5 hours each of Ha and Sii and 6 hours of Oiii. 4" frac and Atik 16200. Processed in Pixinsight. Presented as HOS (Hubble pallet) and HOO (which is very noisy as the Oiii data was so weak.) Having a 90% moon nearby didn't make life any easier !!! CC very welcome. (Especially on how to tackle to two really bright stars - short of buying Astrodon or Chroma filters thank you!)

Lang may yer lum reek...... My resolution for the New Year is 2.34 arc sec per pixel 😉

It's interesting to have a look at these competition entries - everyone had exactly the same data and nothing was permitted to be added or subtracted. There are no two the same and the variety of results is amazing. Yet they must all be 'right' as they are from the same data !

Thanks all - just saved me £17 ! Cheers!!

Can I use a Bahtinov mask designed for a 72mm scope on a 61mm scope ??? Properly centred ?