tomato

Nice one, I love the detail in the dust lanes.

First class result, great colour and lots of detail.

The hole is now at the required depth (1 metre) sides just need to be made vertical. I now struggle to climb out of it. Conduit trench also dug, hopefully concrete mixing and filling later this week.👍🏼

I’ve just finished a 42 year career in chemical manufacturing, as I recall I got into it as the chemical works was the closest site to me offering a job at the time. However, I have harboured a passion for internal combustion engines which run on nitromethane, so I must have the explosives gene in me somewhere.

Lovely mosaic, APP doing it’s stuff I take it? Lots of dust there, I think this region looks great in monochrome. Lots of images being posted of these subjects at the moment, I can see why.

A one cubic metre hole has generated 3 big bags of spoil, need to hire a skip!

I agree Gina, it looks half way to Australia but the tape measure does not lie! The sides are currently tapered inwards which gives it the illusion of being deeper, these will be made vertical just prior to filling and knocking in the rebar.

Good progress on the pier base hole, only another 150 mm to go! The Shropshire subsoil (at least where I live) is great for digging out, easily cleaved clay and no stones. We have estimated 30-40 mixer loads to fill it, a new v belt has been fitted to it in preparation.

There will be a substantial dual rig bolted to the block, and we certainly don’t want to dig it out to put a bigger one in.

Warm room main construction complete, still needs power to it and fitting out internally but we can at last begin dome construction. 😜 Pier base former constructed and pegged in location, now for some hard labour, having decided on 1 cubic metre of concrete to go down. 🥵

That’s a beautiful image, I must say I also admire the clarity of your approach to AP. The subject is so vast and complex, it does make sense to me to have thought through what it is you are trying to achieve. Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

Interesting but, I’m sure, very frustrating. Having previously set up and took down every session, I’m sure my balance of the Esprit 150 on the Mesu is not perfect, but PHD2 when calibrating (which I did every session) does 3 “clearing backlash” steps each time them moves on, no problem. I haven’t unchecked the Backlash option, I confess I didn’t know it existed. How are you checking the balance, will the mount “fall” in the Dec axis when powered off? I would certainly get the balance closer if that is the case, also check the connections and test you can move in all for directions manually. Hope you can get it fixed. Steve

That’s a mighty fine image, I would think the Ghost Nebula benefits from really dark skies, Olly has recorded 22 SQM on occasions at his location so don’t be too hard on yourself. 👍

One got inside my mount flightcase once and filled it with cobwebs. The Arachnid’s way of saying you should use this piece of kit more often.🙄

Another successful imaging request, this time from the 2 metre Faulkes Telescope South at Siding Springs. This is 3 single exposures of RGB, totalling 250 secs. The images were aligned in APP and processed using Startools. Data was provided by the Las Cumbres Observatory, accessed via Perton Library Astronomy Group. Some information about this galaxy, lifted from the 'The Cambridge Photographic Atlas of Galaxies'. NGC 151 is a SB(r)bc galaxy mag 12.8, in the constellation of Cetus, some 170 million light years from our own Milky Way galaxy. It is an "M51" type galaxy in that it is binary galaxy system, the small companion being 2MASXJ00340814, located in the outer left spiral arm in the image. Spectroscopic analysis of the spiral arms to determine rotational velocities have indeed confirmed that they form an M51 type system. This data, excellent as it is, is making me miss capturing my own backyard images. I need to get my back into digging holes and laying some concrete....😉

Yes, it is the FT, accessed via Perton Library Astronomy Group which is affiliated to the Wolverhampton AS.

Thanks for the replies, sounds like a SkyFlat is exactly what is says on the tin.

While participating in the Las Cumbres Observatory Educational Project, I have found out that one set of calibration frames supplied with the light frames taken with the 2 metre telescope at Siding Springs are called SkyFlats. It then occurred to me that taking flats with a twilight sky might be the way they are done with large professional scopes, given the practical difficulties of using very large light panels. Can anyone confirm this or tell me I’m way off the mark. Thanks

Having decided after my house move not to get the imaging rig out until after the permanent observatory has been completed, I have been exploring other options. I have joined the Perton Library Astronomy Group which is affiliated to one of my local clubs the Wolverhampton Astronomical Society. As part of an educational programme the library has access to telescope time provided by the Las Cumbres Observatory, and after submitting a request, we were fortunate to have some data provided on this object. So, this was imaged by the 2 metre Faulkes Telescope North, (see photo below) operated by the Las Cumbres Observatory at the Haleakala location. It consists of 160 secs Red and Green filters, and 195 secs Blue. It would appear that the subs are uncalibrated (no darks or flats applied), but usually calibrated frames are supplied. The data was registered and stacked in APP, then processed in Startools and GIMP. I am very impressed with result for less than 9 mins integration, but it certainly helps having a 2 metre RC on top of a mountain in Hawaii. As this data was provided for educational purposes, here is some info on this beautiful barred spiral galaxy supplied by Wikipedia and the NASA APOD site: Description NGC 1097 is a barred spiral galaxy about 45 million light years away in the constellation Fornax. It was discovered by William Herschel on 9 October 1790. It’s blue spiral arms are mottled with pinkish star forming regions in this colorful galaxy portrait. They seem to have wrapped around a small companion galaxy below and right of center, about 40,000 light-years from the spiral's luminous core. That's not NGC 1097's only peculiar feature, though. Very deep exposure hints of faint, mysterious jets, most easily seen to extend well beyond the bluish arms. In fact, four faint jets are ultimately recognised in optical images of NGC 1097. The jets trace an X centered on the galaxy's nucleus, but probably don't originate there. Instead, they could be fossil star streams, trails left over from the capture and disruption of a much smaller galaxy in the large spiral's ancient past. A Seyfert galaxy, NGC 1097's nucleus also harbors a supermassive black hole. Thanks for looking.

No availability even after a recent price increase, the Esprit range really is that good!😊

20 panels, wow! A breath taking result 👍

I can only speak for the Mesu 200 Mk 1, but in my experience this mount certainly falls into the ‘you forget it is there’ category.

Please be aware the Mesu Mount to which Steve refers is no longer available to purchase new, a Mk 2 version has been released which is discussed here: As a user of the Mk 1 version with Sitech, I would agree 100% with Steve’s appraisal, I have used it as a portable mount for ~4 years, it is now going in a permanent observatory to take advantage of the zero set up time.

Great result, not seen the Fireworks Galaxy in a wide field context before, beautiful image.

The warm room shed is up, although my grand daughter has already christened it “Grandad’s Wendy House”. It seems all DIY observatory build threads are not complete unless they have a time lapse construction video. Here is my very amateur attempt on the shed build (I’ll try and frame the subject properly next time, and apologies moderators for the brief glimpse of builder’s b*m)😄 9560F87C-4BE3-42F8-B735-09C63967718B.MOV