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tomato

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Everything posted by tomato

  1. tomato
    I might have a temperature control issue with my QHY 268c, I set it to cool to -10 degrees C as usual it got about half way there then the cooler power went to 100% which I didn’t notice straight away, when I did it was at -25. I set it to warm up but the temp is stuck at -18 to -20 deg C with 0% cooler power. Powering it down and on again had no effect, I didn’t want to waste the clear sky so I imaged with it, no problem with the subs. It clouded out at 20:30, the temp indication is not moving, so I’ve powered it down and will look at it tomorrow.
  2. tomato
    The IMX178 sensor suffers from significant amp glow, I don’t know why they didn’t go for the next generation 678 sensor, unless Celestron already have a camera based on the older sensor. A smaller sensor also minimises back focus and tilt issues, which is what you want in a just put it outside and go system. At around £4K it isn’t aimed at the Seestar market, I guess the quality of the initial images will determine if folks looking to put an AP rig together from individual components will be tempted.
  3. tomato
    The IMX 178 sensor has significant amp glow which can of course be eliminated with dark frame calibration, or minimised with short exposures, but I wonder why they didn’t go with the IMX678 which is about the same price but has zero amp glow, is the 178 camera already in Celestron’s product range? It should certainly out perform the Seestar but then it definitely isn’t in the same price bracket. It will, I think, tempt someone thinking of putting an AP rig together, especially if they have been seduced by the RASA output regularly posted here on SGL.
  4. tomato
    In APP I would stack each scope/camera combination and then combine the stacks, you can do it all from the raw sub frames, but my PC gets quite hot and bothered in the process.
  5. tomato
    "The Olly and Paul Deep Sky Photographic Atlas of the Northern Hemisphere", I'd buy a copy.👍
  6. tomato
    Might fine, I don't think you can call this the Hidden Galaxy anymore when you see images like this.👍
  7. tomato
    Yes, and their customs officers are very well briefed on the nature and value of astro imaging kit, so you are rolling the dice if you try to go light on the values you declare on the shipping paperwork.
  8. tomato
    If the RASA is a cloud gun, mine is shooting blanks…
  9. tomato
    Yeah, recent early evening clear skies have not lasted into Astro darkness. Last night I set up on a target for 9 hrs of imaging before the meridian flip, I got 90 minutes.
  10. tomato
    You probably shouldn’t but I have combined data from a F2 RASA8, F7 Esprit 150 and an F8 RC on M31, APP takes this in it’s stride.
  11. tomato
    There is a good video on the Astro Imaging Channel about an imager’s (John Hayes) experience of setting up and running a rig in Chile. You are exactly right, he recommends spares be on site for all of the critical items, (cameras, filter wheels, EAFs etc) as the downtime and cost of shipping is horrendous. He reckons on spending about 25-30% of the new price value of your rig to get it safely shipped to site, add on the annual running costs (~10K USD) plus the costs and logistics of paying your kit a visit, it’s a very serious commitment indeed. And at the end, nobody ships their kit back, they either donate it to a University etc. or sell it to another remote imager. That would be the only way I could get into it, but I would have to sell all of my gear at home and then some to fund it.😒 But oh man, the skies and the images are something to behold.
  12. tomato
    That’s a great image, I can only imagine what it must be like trying to operate kit under those conditions…
  13. tomato
    Yes, I will team up with @Tomatobro at some point and dip our toes in the remote imaging pool, but I’ve allocated most of my Q1 Astro budget to upgrading my visual scope. With our climate, you could argue that doesn’t make much sense, but you can work on modifying scopes even when it’s cloudy.😉 I’ve looked into going the whole hog and relocating some of my kit to a really remote site in Chile, but you need very deep pockets for this, I just can’t bring myself to not having some kit in my own backyard. PS, I got about 2 x 80 mins last night so it wasn’t a total write off.
  14. tomato
    Well, I had a sky like that as the sun went down, set up for a 9 hour (yes, 9 hours) imaging run, got the first hour safely in then set up TeamViewer on the Ally Sky Cam so I could monitor the next few hours in the warm. First image to greet me on the iPad was this: The cloud radar still looks good? so I’ll try and restart the session but this isn’t funny anymore.
  15. tomato
    Yes, since seeing the mist patch on the sensor I have extended the cool down to -10 deg C duration to 15 minutes. There might be a good test of it tonight, as I wait for it to get dark there isn’t a cloud in the sky!🤞
  16. tomato
    Yes, the threaded plug has the silicone o ring in place. I’m assuming there are some bonded joints on the sensor housing and there may be a wiring port somewhere? Certainly some potential sources of a leak.
  17. tomato
    Thanks Vlaiv, I hadn't thought of this. In my working life I was used to glass viewing windows being made out of 2" thick borosilicate glass (on chemical reaction vessels) and hence not prone to much flexture (hopefully).
  18. tomato
    I have just noticed this morning that along with the ambient air pressure, the sensor pressure reading has risen also. I'm aware this will go up and down in a sealed system in line with temperature changes, but it does appear to be tracking the outside air pressure, more evidence that the chamber is not sealed. I know @Tomatobro has a barometer/RH station in his dome, he can maybe make a more precise observation on this when he sees then post.
  19. tomato
    And another issue, for those of us not blessed with frequent clear, dark skies, vastly different background levels across the panels. I did a 4 panel mosaic with the SY135 to capture M31 and M33 in the same image and really struggled to get a uniform star field density across the panels, due I suspect to varying sky conditions across the sessions.
  20. tomato
    The imager (John Hayes), visited his set up at the site in Chile and declared it to be the darkest site he has ever seen, and he is familiar with the remote imaging locations in the US. Based on that Olly I agree that you must be at one of the best dark locations in Europe, your images are also testament to that.
  21. tomato
    Just on the question of the Sy135’s (and the RASA8) amazing ability to capture this much signal in 2 hrs, I’m wondering just how much your dark sky contributes to this. I’ve just watched a video on the AIC about remote imaging in Chile, the sky at the site records a SQM of 22, from memory your location is not far from this?
  22. tomato
    I had a wider question in that that although we should of course operate the cameras at the optimum settings for deep sky imaging, do these changes make a visible difference to the final result, given the magnitude of the changes made to the raw data by modern processing techniques (e.g LP gradient removal, BXT, NXT etc.
  23. tomato
    Phew, relieved to see you didn’t pick up the Spaghetti Nebula in all it’s glory or else I would be selling up now.😉 A wondrous image, as always.
  24. tomato
    I read a lot reviews when the QHY268c first came out, the consensus then was to use DSO mode with gain 30. I was happy with the results so left it at that. However I dare say there have been developments since then and I will try the other settings. May I ask how much impact will these changes make to the final image, given all of the other contributing factors that make up the process? In an ideal world we would image from the top of a mountain in the Atacama desert and get dozens of hrs of integration to improve SNR, so optimum camera settings would make a measurable difference but in practice we have Light Pollution removal tools, Blur and Noise Xterminator to help us out, which I’d venture make orders of magnitude difference to the final result. I guess @vlaiv can make the science based case, and if someone cares to loan me another QHY 268 I could run a side by side trial on the dual rig. I tried a comparison with a QHY268c and an RC571c but they are not the same camera so running them with different gain and off set settings didn’t make any sense.
  25. tomato
    I used the orange coloured beads that came in a sealed bottle, my understanding that is usually the colour of 'active' silica gel beads, they go blue or green when saturated with water. This offset number.. I'm sure I had it set it at around 50 previously and somebody on SGL informed me that the figure was too low, I thought the the idea is you need a little bit of null space to the left of the histogram peak. I run the OSC camera at 155, it's something to play around with while it stays cloudy.
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