tomato

I Know I shouldn't be shooting galaxies in a light sky but like everyone else I'm not letting these clear nights go to waste. This is NGC 7331, taken with the dual Esprit 150/ASI 178 rig. L 83 x 3 mins RGB 20 x 3 mins Calibrated and stacked in APP, processed in Startools and Pixinsight Thanks for looking

As part of @rorymultistorey's BAT project, I have been trying lucky imaging of M27 with the Esprit 150/ASI 178 rig. This is the best 624 x 5 sec Lum subs of over 1000 taken, trying to capture more detail in the brighter regions than would normally be achieved with longer exposures.

That’s a fine M31 first DSO image. I can only echo Steve’s comments, the star shapes look like a camera spacing issue, as the elongation is similar in all 4 corners and the centre stars are good. I understand from your previous posts you are based in the UK so this image wasn’t captured in Astro darkness, the quality of your DSO broadband images will improve once the dark nights return.👍

Just for info, I imaged with an Altair 107 APO and Moravian G2-8300 plus guidescope on a belt modded HEQ5. It was a nice setup, guiding around 0.6-0.7 arcsec RMS total.

Congratulations to all, lots of diversity in the entries, and really stunning winning images.👍

Hi Brad, I think OVL are the UK distributors for Skywatcher, http://www.opticalvision.co.uk/astronomy_faqs.html If you are prepared to waive your new scope warranty there are some good people on SGL who might have a go at fixing the problem, but there are no guarantees that they can fix it. Have a look at this thread:

Agreed, not impressed with the choice of host for the live stream...

Thanks for this @Xiga. Interesting that he encountered issues with the focus which required regular refocus, that’s contrary to myself and Gorann’s experience with the RASA. The flat USB cables supplied with ZWO cameras don’t have a great reputation for reliability, so might be good to change this for a round profile cable. I have never switched off the circulation fan on the scope when imaging, so I’ll do this next time.

Definitely not a fan of the Celestron squidgy material, given how precise the tilt adjustment needs to be. I'm not sure what their thinking was to include this, it isn't as if you are tightening the retaining ring onto glass.

And how about that all of this immensity has only existed for a finite amount of time (only 13.8 billion years), and, even more mind blowing, we know this… I find this Apollo 11 image very humbling, with the comment that all of humanity, less one, was in front of the camera.

The other 3 scopes I have did need to be approved by the FD. Top tip: always emphasise the resale value.😊

Just to clarify, I don’t own both 150s, my brother shares my enthusiasm for AP, he purchased one, I was fortunate to pick the second one up in the SGL classifieds.

There is a view that I’m barmy to have invested in a dual rig of that scale in the cloudy UK, but I took the view that when it is clear I have a fighting chance of completing a full colour image before the clouds roll back in.

Yes, I only came across it this year when looking for small, photogenic galaxies to image. NGC 3938 is another nice target which doesn’t get imaged very often, I think it looks even more like a mini M101.

Olly, Just another observation on the camera cooling which may be relevant given the climate at your location. On milder nights (10+ deg ambient temp) I found that with the dewshield in place my QHY 268 cooling could not maintain my set point temp of -20 deg. This was definitely due to the warm exhaust air from the camera being recirculated within the confines of the dewshield, as soon as I removed the shield the camera ran at the set point with around 65% of the cooling capacity utilised. No problem with the dewshield in place on cold nights. To be fair, -20 was probably in excess of what was required, but the cameras are obviously not designed to pull in their heated fan exhaust. If you are using decent quality power and USB cables you might find it a struggle to route them down closer to the corrector plate, I use Gorann’s arrangement with no (to my eye at least) unpleasant diffraction artefacts.

In my experience the Celestron RASA focus motor is a great bit of kit, easy to install and precise operation. I know Gorann’s experience is the focus doesn’t shift very much at all on these scopes but great to be able to check without getting hands on.

This is my personal view but I don’t get too hung up (pun intended) on cable management. Provided they don’t get snagged when doing a meridian flip or slewing (and you can test this easily enough in the daylight) then I take the view the incoming photons don’t care if your cables are minimalist and tidy. Also I change my setup significantly on a regular basis, so if my cables were all of the precise length, I would need at least 3 sets. But then I can appreciate that 3 tons of spaghetti hanging off your rig is not to everybody’s taste…

Looking good! And a departure from Atik’s Artemis capture software? A lot of change happening at once. I got my RASA/OSC combo up and running with NINA, with no drama.

Just looked at a photo of the Pier 8 set up, I see what you mean about all the weight hanging off the wedge. Do you know by any chance how big the concrete base is that the wedge is bolted to?

Presumably you operating the L500 with a wedge rather than in Alt/Az mode?

Maybe somebody (a non Astro person?) wants the garden space back. Looks like it needs fixing up a little but a real bargain for someone.

Just looked up the details on the camera, that’s nice!

Great job, as good as any Pillars of Creation that I have seen captured from the ground.👍

Great image, plenty of sharp detail and colour.

Great list. Noting your location, I think you can add a key W word, namely Weather Watching!