tomato

Wolves AS is setting up at Halfpenny Green Airport, it has a good South/West horizon. Clear skies in Shropshire at the moment.....🤞

I’d say facilitated alt/az mount fine adjustments aren’t necessary if the mount is going on a permanent pier, but I used the adjusters a lot on the Mk 1 when I used to set up and take down every session. There is quite a bit of engineering to provide the altitude adjustment on the Mk 1, I can see why you might want to dispense with it from both rigidity and cost stand point.

Nice images, it must be great to slew around the sky to objects with the plate solving working, but this will no doubt prove very useful to precisely pin point the same object over multiple nights if we are ever that fortunate with the weather.

The connections into the controller are an improvement on the Mk I, on that version the wires connect into an exposed terminal block.

A brilliant result, you really have done a great job combining the data, and only 5 hrs luminance! Very, very impressive.👍

As much as I think truss tube RCs totally look the business, and have generally been considered to be the instrument of choice for small targets, your article and the surrounding discussions on SGL convinced me to go the refractor route. My efforts with it to date have not changed my view, indeed I have recently purchased another for a dual rig to be set up in the not too distant future. Anyway, in my experience the Dutch are a very amiable people, and they do love to chat. They have kept me engaged in the hotel bar well into the early hours on numerous business trips. You couldn’t pick a nicer people to have a lively debate with.☺️

I was wondering the same thing when imaging with an ASI 178. The smart histogram in SharpCap recommended 30 sec subs, so that was what I was using. However, as imaging time was precious I didn’t have the nerve to turn the guiding off for fear of losing the data.

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.