tomato

Great video, your results with the lucky imaging show real promise, but getting our atmosphere to behave itself even for just 5 seconds at a time is asking a lot. I have a similar fledgling project underway with @Tomatobro entitled the SNSLA (the Shropshire Not So Large Array), but I’d be happy to contribute to the BAT if my kit is compatible. My Esprit 150/ASI 178 combo can image down to 0.47 arcsec per pixel, but small targets only.

Joking aside, I have done precisely that, folks will still get some good deals when I expire, but Mrs Tomato won’t get taken for a ride.

Personally, in this day and age, I wouldn’t attempt this. You will probably get added to some terrorist watch list when you try to source the chemicals. Also, based on my 42 years of experience working in the chemical industry, you don’t want to be handling nitric acid in your shed.

A few years back I needed a large flight case to take my mount. After a bit of research I visited Flightcase UK in Bradford, they make large bespoke cases but had a range of smaller and used cases. I picked this used one up with a bag of foam in fills for £40, first photo was in it’s as seen condition, second is after I smartened it up a bit.

Glad you sorted it out. My NINA focus routines on my Esprit 150s are currently not as robust as they normally are, but then I’m trying to use them in a twilight sky which I’m sure isn’t helping. Incidentally I recently discovered NINA has a number of curve fitting functions for the focus routine, other than the simple V profile.

First class M101, I also like the composition.

Does astrophotography have to have scientific value to be a worthwhile pastime? Folks do portrait or landscape photography and nobody asks where is the science. For sure AP requires technical know how and equipment, but you can spend thousands on a complex ‘terrestrial’ camera and lenses if you want to. There is a lot of proper science done by amateur astrophotographers, e.g. SN, minor planet, comet hunting, photometry etc, but I’m willing to bet most set ups are used just to take pretty pictures.

Is the sheet on the floor ready to collect the glass fragments? File this alongside someone standing on a Mesu 200.😄

Don’t forget the cable connections coming straight out of the back of the camera. If formed into a circle I think there is a risk that they could be rigid enough on a cold night to impart sufficient force onto the corrector plate to break it if they hit the roof. 90 degree connectors would be good if you can get them. I have the 8” so can’t help with the dimensions, but I did find this photo of the RASA11 in use that you might be able to get an estimate from.

If the incredible Saturn V is your thing, I recommend the Haynes Manual on this subject, full of facts, figures and great photos on this triumph of 20th century engineering.

Thanks Marv, I watched a review of the SW 16” Dob on YouTube, the reviewer cautioned anyone living in a first floor flat against buying one. Now making that one Grab ‘n Go would be a real challenge…

I have home built stepper motor drives on my Esprit 150s, these, along with adjustment of the existing focusers, prevents any slippage when carrying the usual load of camera, OAG and filter wheel.

Dare I say it, image capture can sometimes get a bit routine for hour after hour on the same object, so myself and @Tomatobro decided to get a scope for some visual astronomy for the nights when the imaging rig behaves itself. Living in a Bortle 4/5 area and with convenient access to Bortle 3 location I wanted a decent aperture, but also mindful that it would need to be moved and setup by one person. As you might expect, the aperture argument won out when a used 16" SW Goto Dob came up. When loading it (disassembled) into the car after purchase I was thinking that it might be a bit on the large size for casual use, it was clearly going to need some sort of mobile base if it wasn't going to become a white (and black) elephant. So @Tomatobro came up with a low profile 4 wheel frame that the scope can sit on permanently, enabling it to be trundled out of the garage, round the side of the house and onto the back lawn by one person. And it works! From garage to lawn takes around 2 minutes of careful manoeuvring, it only just goes through the side gate and I have to watch out for a plastic drain pipe on the corner of the house. The collimation doesn't survive the journey, but I expected that, one minute with a Hotech SCA collimator puts that right. The scope is a goto model which wasn't working when purchased, and to date it we haven't managed to fix it despite some fantastic assistance from @malc-c who supplied lots of knowledge and some replacement PICs. So for now we are using it in manual mode, @Tomatobro has made and installed an azimuth protractor for the base, complete with illuminated reticle, and an inclinometer with magnetic base takes care of altitude angle measurement. So is it grab 'n go? Well not really, but it can be grabbed and it certainly goes on the 4 wheel trolley. I'm sure if I had gone with a 10" model I would have always been thinking what would this look like through a 16", so I have avoided that regret. At this rate I might even post in the observing section...😉 n

Hi Peter, From my notes I have the Esprit 150 weighing in at 12.7 kg, that is with the focuser attached, but no tube rings, camera or filter wheel attached. For lifting the OTA is decidedly front end heavy, no doubt due to the substantial piece of glass at that end. Good luck with whatever you decide. Cheers Steve

Considering your trials and tribulations, that’s a nice M27, great colour. It does look to me like the data is black clipped, though no doubt shooting on the shortest night of the year and a full moon, you were battling the light background. On my Celestron RASA which has the camera attached to the corrector plate, the fan in the camera is enough to keep the dew off, so a fan built into the dew shield could work. I bet a SCT owner has already tried this…

Just caught up with this latest innovation from Ivo, hopefully 1.8 will be out there by the time I can have a go at M33 again.

Having briefly dipped my toe in the water of requesting imaging time on a large remote telescope made available for educational purposes via my local Astro Club, you can get hands on some quality (albeit short integration times) data which will process through to a pleasing end result. However, depending on the popularity of the scope, and/or intervening cosmic events, the imaging request may get bumped down the queue or even dropped off the list. If you want data to process it is far easier to just download existing files available for free from a host of sites available on the web, including HST data. Personally, the remote approach doesn't do it for me, but then I am fortunate to have my own imaging rig.

Having only owned and used refractors for a number of years, I wasn't looking forward to collimating a recently acquired 16" SW Dobsonian. However, @Tomatobro loaned me his Hotech SCA Laser Collimator and after using it I felt compelled to write this review. The expanding rubber o ring arrangement ensures the instrument is centrally aligned in the focuser and achieving precise alignment of the primary mirror spot was straightforward, I was impressed with how when precisely aligned, the laser projected some thin illuminated cross hairs across the surface of the primary. Then onto primary adjustment, again the projected cross hairs on the collimator target made this a quick, straightforward process. When I think back to the late 1980's when I used to try and collimate my F4 Schmidt Newtonian without the aid of a device such as the Hotech, I really appreciate this technological advance. Highly recommended.

Thanks, Vlaiv, for as always, a comprehensive and considered reply, this came in as I typed my previous post. There are lots of options then for me to try, I just need enough clear sky time to do them all justice.

I want to image with a KAF8300 on an Esprit 150 with the 0.77 reducer alongside an Esprit 150 and a QHY268c. To get the imaging resolutions similar I need to bin the QHY camera, so I thought capture Lum with this and RGB with the CCD. I suppose I could capture colour data with the QHY and then downsize the RGB channels in Startools or PI, if trying to bin at the point of capture doesn't work. Something to ponder while I wait for the dark nights to return.

That's interesting. Would the software binning be smart enough to offset the green bias in the matrix I wonder?

If you bin a CMOS OSC camera I know that will mess up the Bayer matrix and you will lose the colour data, but would it produce an acceptable monochrome luminance image? The individual pixels would have different sensitivities but wouldn’t this get evened out by the software binning?

For small targets I use Esprit 150s and ASI 178 cmos cameras binned 2x2 to image at 0.94 arcsec per pixel, which is usually a bit optimistic for my seeing. I must try the Starnet processing technique to see if I can get tighter stars. At the ripe old age of 63 I regularly lift the scopes on and off open tube rings in the confines of a Pulsar dome, to date with no drama.🤞

I use the IDAS NBZ dual band filter with my OSC camera, and can confirm the data works fine with Luke’s workflow.👍

I'm still imaging, and against all sensible advice still imaging galaxies, albeit bright ones. This is a WIP on M63, using the 2 hours of Nautical darkness still available from my location. By the time the moon gets out of the way to continue this one, the nights will be getting longer!