tomato

Nice one. One clear night required per 100 years, that should be possible, even from the UK.

A superb wide field Veil Nebula, I am more into imaging galaxies so capturing this would be quite a challenge with my kit, but if anything can persuade me to try, it is an image of this quality. Steve

They are all fine images, with exquisite detail. It could be called “the Chinese Dragon Nebula” which is what is conjured up in my mind’s eye looking into the swirls of dust. Great job. 👍

A Demon Deal at 100x the current bid...

As Steve Richards said in his book ‘Making Every Photon Count’ (which I strongly recommend you read if you want to get into Astrophotography) “sooner or later you WILL want to auto-guide....”

+1 for GIMP, free and has most, if not all, of the standard features used for AP in PS. The latest PS Cloud based version seems quite an investment if you only want it for AP, I’d rather spend the cash on hardware.

Thank you Mike, that’s what I’m missing. Steve

I’ve downloaded SGP on what I understand is a 45 day free trial of the full version. I can connect the mount Sitech controller and Hitec focuser, but cannot see the Moravian G2-8300 in the camera drop down. I have read on the SGP forum that the software only works with the Moravian 32 bit drivers, so I have downgraded the SIPS software to the 32 bit version and corresponding drivers, but still cannot see it in the list, the camera is working fine with the SIPS software. I know this camera is used successfully with SGP so I’m missing something, any help much appreciated.

SGP is also next on my to do list, so thanks for posting this.

Yes, just a steady hand with a small angle grinder, it does eliminate some of the standing water on the plinth. I thought the drain could freeze up in cold conditions, lagging might work, we will have to see how it goes over the next few months.

Unfortunately there is not enough room left in the conduit.😊

Some further additions, first a Steampunk inspired drain pipe for the dehumidifier, second, a set of 4 LED lights for standard illumination inside the dome, and thirdly an intercom so the telescope technician can talk to the imager in the warm room. This may seem a bit OTT, but better than shouting to each other at 2 a.m. which could be considered a bit anti-social. @Tomatobro picked this up (new) for £5 on eBay.

Another very impressive small galaxy image, great colour and detail. NGC 772 is a new one on me, it will definitely be on my to do list when the ASI 178 goes on the Esprit. How are you combining the data from the dual rig, is it with AstroArt?

I have played around to improve the noisy background but now I’ve clipped it a little? I much prefer data capture, it’s a lot more black and white, if you see what I mean.

Spot on, a rather pretentious title for my home observatory. New Mexico it isn't, but you couldn't film Peaky Blinders there.

A great result, what software did you use to stitch them together, APP by any chance? I too have a few mosaics with only the interesting pieces imaged, but I do think they would benefit from filling in the blanks. The trouble is that takes up precious clear sky time in the UK.

Thanks for the comments. As soon as I saw the first sub I knew I should rotate the camera but my head was still sore from my encounter with the counter weight (see post in the Astro Lounge) so with that in mind I pressed on with this “test” image. I will be more rigorous in future, should help when I get SGP up and running which is the next scheduled improvement.

Here is my first proper image taken with an Esprit 150, G2-8300 and Mesu, now residing in their new permanent observatory. 20 x 300 secs L, 4 x 300 secs RGB, total integration time, 2 hrs 40 mins. Calibrated in APP, processed in APP and GIMP. Based on this, I think my sky is better in Shropshire than North Yorkshire, which is good, as I did try to relocate to a darker location. Framing is rubbish, and still noisy, but hopefully bodes well for the dual rig. Thanks for looking.

It’s the Health and Safety at Work Act, so you can do what you like at home.😎 We have moved to a new development and I am surrounded by construction workers sans safety glasses, gloves, hearing protection, dust masks etc, it reminds me why my blood pressure was higher before I retired.

Yup, got proper first light on the scope in it’s new permanent observatory tonight, well chuffed☺️

Hey, I was a Health and Safety Manager for a couple of years before my retirement, (that has something to do with why I retired), I definitely didn’t take my work home with me🤫.

And those Mesu hooks can be tough to remove if the drive has tried to move with them in place, usually means powering it down to loosen them off.

Now I know why the interlocking floor tiles are washable.

I knew with ultimately a dual rig in there moving around would be hazardous, hence having a warm room adjacent and (almost) remote imaging was the plan. I didn’t bank on the commissioning phase though. Oh, I have hit my head on the door frame numerous times already, hence that is why I was crouching when I walked into the counter weight....😜

After using my Mesu/Sitech controller successfully for 5 years in a set up/take down mode, it has now been moved to a permanent pier. After initial set up and running, tonight Sitech.exe refused to connect to the mount. On checking the comms log, the software was trying to connect repeatedly to Com port 0, even though the port number was correctly assigned in ServoConfig. After attempting to this for the best part of two hours, it was noted that the log was now indicating that it was trying to connect using com port 50, one of the assigned port numbers we had been trying to use earlier. Everything was assigned to this number again, and it connected successfully! Note, on my old laptop running Windows 7, it connects every time without any intervention. My new laptop is on Windows 10, maybe has this something to do with it?