tomato

Thanks Steve, I only want the council to implement their existing policy, the street lights on the estate on the other side of the main road to me do go off at midnight, mind you it’s a bit of work for them so I won’t count my chickens just yet.

Thanks Steve, it’s been a while in the making, but really excited to be moving towards a permanent observatory. I just need Shropshire Council to apply their ‘street lights off after midnight’ policy to the bit of the county where I now live.😊

Base now complete, ready for the shed delivery tomorrow, phew!😅

I agree, given the wealth of experience with the Sitech 2 controller and the Mesu 200, I would certainly ask if an upgrade on the controller was available.

I suspect the Mk II Mesu has the Sitech 1 fitted on cost grounds. The Sitech 2 controller is very powerful and there are a host of posts and useful guides on this forum on how to set this up with the Mesu. I confess I know very little about the Sitech 1, I presume Lucas will offer a quick set up guide with the mount as he did with the Mesu Mk I, also please check out the Sitech Users group on Yahoo, there are an awful lot of knowledgable and helpful Sitech users on there (including the guys who run Sidereal Technology) who will be glad to answer your queries.

Brilliant video, thanks for posting. Luke Talley, what a top guy, you get to see how they made it to the moon with Luke, and lots of others like him, working on the project. Was it Jim Lovell who said, “Getting to the moon wasn’t a miracle, we just decided to go.”

All beautiful, finely crafted images, my favourite though is the monochrome version. For me it shows the overall structure in more clarity, I like the spike like dark rift which is more prominent in the top RH corner.

I visited in 1990, I was dismayed to see the mighty Saturn V being displayed outside as shown in your photos, and starting to deteriorate under the Florida climate. It was great to see it displayed under cover when I returned in 2005, and if if I’m not mistaken, all funded by public donations?

Superb result, I love the detail, vibrant colours and the contrast with the star field ‘background’. I agree it’s worth sacrificing the IFN for such a stunning image.

Very nice trio, great colour. Spot on with the Angelfish profile, I used to keep tropical fish in a previous life. I can still find some distant galaxies in the M12 image, bit more of a challenge on the others looking into the Milky Way.

Some further progress made on the base for the warm room shed, need to push on as it gets delivered on Monday and I paid to have it erected.

Yes indeed, 40+ years of body clock habit is not undone in a month.

For me, first and foremost is the mount, it can be seriously under used on forgiving FL set ups but when the focal length increases you can’t do much about guiding performance if your mount isn’t up to it. Following Olly Penrice’s findings on large refractor/small pixel camera vs large aperture longer FL reflector for imaging smaller targets, I was persuaded to go the former route, with no regrets on the outcome. But I do like what a large aperture well collimated RC can deliver on small targets, so one thing is for sure, unless you rigorously confine yourself to one type of object to image, this hobby can certainly be money hungry. 💷🔭🙄 Steve

I have been retired just a month, I’m still keeping most of my old Sunday afternoon/evening routine except I’m not setting the alarm at 06:45 any more.👍😀

Very impressive, I would love to give this target a proper go but it’s height above the horizon is always a challenge from my location.

Or better still, leave the dust cap on....😜

The locations for the shed and dome bases have been pegged out, a Skywatcher tripod has been pressed into service for the laser level. We have started to dig out the footings for the blocks that will form part of the base for the shed, but 30 degrees, 95% humidity and two retired geezers in their 60’s means it is happening at a measured pace...🥵

On my rather brief experience with CMOS mono cameras (ASI 178) to date on small galaxy imaging with an Esprit 150, I have been impressed with the detail captured with relatively short integration times. I have noted however, that the images captured so far seem to have a distinct hue, I have found it difficult to replicate the palette usually displayed with CCD images of the same target. However, this could be down to my mediocre processing skills.

I can’t see the data storage capacity required coming down anytime soon on CMOS cameras, lots of pixels times lots of subs equals lots of data.

Thanks Gav, New Mexico it ain’t, but it’s the best I could do and keep Mrs Tomato 100% on board, because without her, I would still be working for a living.

Thanks very much for this, from what I had read on the council website I was hoping that these lights would go off at mid-night. However, you have probably gathered from the photos that it is a new build estate, and I think the lights maybe still be under the developer’s control as they currently stay on all night. According to the link, they should come under the partial lit remit.

Apologies for the rather pretentious post title, it is actually the start of the Tomato and Tomatobro collaborative back garden observatory. I’ve now retired to semi-rural Shropshire and we can now make a start on this long awaited project. Observatory will consist of a second hand Pulsar Dome and separate shed for the warm room in the corner of the garden. The outlook is OK apart from one LED street light directly opposite, will have to see how much of an issue this is for imaging. First lot of materials landed with expert precision by the truck driver using a wireless controller for the crane, I was most impressed. More posts to follow as the build progresses.

Another brilliant image and post Steve, I do like these “off the beaten track” targets. Are there any theories on what is generating the symmetrical shape in the gas/dust cloud? Is it in any way analogous to the gravitational dynamics that generate barred spiral galaxies, albeit on a much smaller scale?

Full use made of the 50 hrs imaging time, one of the best M27 images I’ve seen.👏

Really like the 3D printed components, looks like the technology was made for the AP hobby.