tomato

Thanks for the feedback, hopefully this one has the reduced magenta. And why is Bruce this way up? In homage to my favourite movie and the iconic poster:😁

Very frustrating weather at the moment, some clear spells but enough frequent passing cloud to make an unattended extended imaging session very difficult. So looking through the archive I found two sessions on the Dark Shark, a short one taken from a dark site at the Autumn Star camp at Cwmdu, and a longer session from my own back yard, all with the RASA8/IMX 571 OSC. 7.7 hrs in total, processed primarily with the X-suite of tools in PI. This may be an artefact of my processing, but there appear to be three distinct wave fronts along the dorsal of the Shark, highlighted by the blue emission nebulosity but also visible lower down, and on his underbelly there are some features that closely resemble the Ghost Nebula (Sh2-136, VdB 141), presumably the same process that created those spectres is going on here?

I use the Mesu Mk 1 with NINA and CdC. I start up Sitech first, then CdC, I connect the mount to CdC using the Sitech Ascom driver. Then I start NINA and connect the mount, again with the Sitech Ascom driver. For most sessions I search for an object in CdC and slew to it from there. I plate solve in NINA then do the corrective slew from CdC then it’s all NINA from then on. This could all be done from NINA, and for a mosaic it would be but for single frame sessions it’s what I have got used to and it works seamlessly every time.

Actually an apology and a correction is in order, I’ve just checked the Touptek UK price for the IMX571c against the RC version and the Touptek UK price inc VAT is lower than the RC price before VAT and import charges are applied. The RC price has increased significantly (like most things) since my purchase in 2021. This really makes purchasing from Touptek UK a no brainer in my book.

I’m restricting the search to LRGB or NB imaging. I think Olly’s suggestion would just about qualify but as discrete nebulae go are we looking at Ha clouds in our neighbouring galaxies? I’ve just remembered that I just about managed to record the plasma jet from 3C 273, at 2.4 billion light years, that could be a good candidate?

I’m afraid the UK Touptek prices aren’t in the same league as the same camera from China. Paying the Customs fees is straightforward, the hassle comes if or when you have to return the camera for repair or service.

The Bortle scale at least in the UK, pales into insignificance compared to where you are on the Okta scale…

Yes, that was the issue with my dual Esprit 150 rig, flexture between the guided and unguided scopes. It was brought under control by a large alloy bracing plate bolted across the top of the tube rings, a pain to set up when aligning the scopes but saves a lot of frustration thereafter. Hopefully your set up will not need one.

Looking forward to seeing the results from the dual Esprit 150 rig, what cameras are you planning to use?

Got it in one👍🏼

Or get into mosaics, not $$$$$$ but tttttttttt.😉

Great result given your conditions. Oiii will be very hard to collect under a full moon.

No, it’s out of warranty so I have to pay shipping both ways and the repair. Shipment to China with FedEx cost £40, hopefully RC’s economies of scale will kick in for the return trip. But… I was £800-£900 ahead of the price of a ZWO or QHY camera, so I still have some headroom.

I don't think this is giving anything away as it was all in the ads, but what made me suspicious (apart from his lack of forum activity) was that he said he was selling the 2600MC because he was moving into mono imaging, and then the next day he posts a 533 for sale because he is quitting AP...🤔 Any astro kit of complexity and high value I buy second hand from someone I don't know either directly or by reputation would be a face to face deal with inspection and testing involved. This has meant a 500 mile round trip in the past but I reckon it's worth the hassle. This policy alone would have protected me from this guy.

I bid "Au Revoir" (hopefully) today to my damaged RC IMX 571 as it starts it's trip back to China. Eddie has said he thinks the repair will be "not much" so we'll see how that pans out. If I deem the repair quote to be uneconomic I'll ask him to keep it and put it in RC's Black Museum and I'll put the funds towards a new replacement. I suspect this will be from a UK based retailer though.

I just want to thank the SGL members who PM’ed to warn me about the recent scam adverts in the classified section when they saw that I had replied to one. The ads have now been removed, and I didn’t part with any cash. I already had my own suspicions but I appreciate it that they took the time to give me a heads up. Like Grant says, if it looks too good to be true, it almost certainly is.

Great result, in the UK waiting for the perfect night to image can be a very long time coming.

Yes, so much to image, so little time...

I was just idly thinking about what is meant by Deep Sky imaging, my conclusion is we apply that term to anything outside of the Solar System. But then there are certainly different orders of magnitude of distance to the objects we image. Most nebulae are relatively local with most named objects being in our own galaxy though there are some named objects in M33 and M31 for example. We all know if you want to go really, really deep with amateur equipment then Quasars are your best bet, but what about a really distant Nebula? A quick Google search came up with Himiko, a Lyman-alpha blob with a redshift of z=6.6. It is in the constellation of Cetus but has an apparent magnitude of around 25. It is in the Stellarium database but I have no data on it's angular apparent size, I'm guessing it is tiny. Does anybody have any other more realistic candidates?

With the cloud/full moon currently hindering my favourite imaging season, I have been looking through my archive to find photogenic galaxies which would benefit from more integration time, and seeing how they come out after applying the RC X suite of processing tools to them. NGC 3718 is one such candidate, this 7.6 hrs of 2021 Esprit150/ASI178 LRGB data was rather spoilt by a huge slug of a dust mote just above the galaxy, which with my better handle on using Affinity Photo I have managed to cosmetically remove to a large extent. Definitely one to image again.

Apologies, I didn’t realise AN paid a fee if they used one of the images submitted. Congratulations on getting yours published, to date I’ve only submitted one image as the standard is very high, but I might submit a few more now, thanks to the X suite of processing tools.☺️

Just looked up your photo in AN, great image. Their policy of reserving the right to use the submitted images at some future point in the magazine must give them a nice stream of free images coming into their library, but they do do at least acknowledge the source if they use it.

Seemingly just a point of light amongst many others, but wow, do we now know different! Great capture👍

Steve, here are the co-ordinates if you need them.

I emailed Eddie at RisingCam on Monday, now CNY is over, saying I’m ready to send it back, just waiting for a reply with the shipping details…