tomato

When I did this I rotated the mount 90 degrees then reset the park position. I synced the mount on a star and was good to go. Certainly no need to take the mount apart. You should see a definite improvement in mount stability by going side by side.👍

Here is a capture of Santa, or at least Rudolph, transiting M31. Merry Christmas!🎄 🎅

Great set of images, I love the dusty renditions that are presented these days, they are almost unrecognisable as M42! I have all of the necessary equipment however I’m about at the point of your last image, but I’ll keep trying.

There are definitely different categories of AP faff. I certainly don’t enjoy tracing a dodgy USB connection, especially as a precious clear night is slipping by, or trying to find out why my channel stacks suddenly refuse to register, but hunting down rarely imaged targets, then changing scope, filter and camera configurations to suit a particular target is part of the fun, as is finding out just what miraculous feats the latest generation of processing tools can perform on my mediocre data. I see some owners are already tinkering with their Seestars, it’s definitely part of the fun! I am concerned though, about the future prospects of imaging here in the UK. We joke about the weather but I can see more people being deterred from setting up expensive rigs in this country, it would be a shame if we became a nation of remote imagers. Merry Christmas and Clear Skies in 2024.

Definitely more structure detail visible in v2.

I have only ever managed to get SXT confused once but when it did, it lost it big time.😊 Do you like the ghoulish figure in the centre, the Conspiracy Theorists would have a field day with that.

There is a comment in the description of the mirrors on the larger SW stargate dobsonians that the mirrors have fused ribs rather than glued, I’m not sure if this innovation is age or size related. I can see why a full thickness mirror of this size or bigger would need a 27 point cell, it would appear that these mirrors can successfully use a single central support and hence it must have been quite a breakthrough in mirror manufacture. I’m surprised I haven’t read more about it.

Ok, that photo is not of my scope, I need to check what is there.

Great detail in the nebulae and Alnitak is really well controlled.

Fair comment. The mirror does not have a flat underside so a conventional multi point cell would not work anyway. I think we will just transplant it as is. I am intrigued to see what lies beneath that central cover plate though.

Does anybody have any inside knowledge on SkyWatcher's mirror cell design on their large Dobsonians? After reading a bit on constructing a mirror cell for large Dobsonians, SW seem to buck the accepted thinking by only having a single central support point, presumably due to their mirror having a weight saving ribbed conical design. I am planning to transplant this cell into a light weight compact mirror box design but it will certainly be a big deviation from the multi point Wiffletree approach. Having said that, there are a lot of large aperture SW Dobs out there and I haven't found any references to owners bemoaning the mirror cell and embarking on modifications, I have certainly been satisfied with the cell's performance with regard to holding collimation etc.

Radon gas is no joke, it nearly scuppered my daughter’s first house purchase.

The LBN 990 nebula is something else, it looks like an alien artefact.

I get little streaks and hot pixels appearing regularly on my all sky camera frames, and a neighbour about 150 metres away has a wood burning stove that he runs a lot during the cold months. Are they related I wonder, I always thought they were cosmic rays hitting the sensor.

Located about 6 degrees west of M31 is PGC 3990, magnitude 13.8 and about 1.5 arc minutes wide. I can't find out much about it except it is 283M light years distant so ~120x further away than M31. Despite that it is showing enough size and structure for me to spot it on the DSS overlay in Stellarium, so I thought it deserved it's 15 minutes of fame, thanks for looking. Captured with the Esprit 150/ASI178 dual rig, 10.6 hrs integration, capture details as follows: L 159 x 2 mins R 50 x 2 mins G 57 x 2 mins B 51 x 2 mins

Yes, one definitely worth waiting for👍🏼

In the absence of other variables, the atmosphere can play a significant part. Imaging a target at 75 degrees elevation guiding was at 0.4 arc secs total RMS cf. 0.5 with a target at 30 degrees elevation.

Great result! I don't know why, but it seems to me that with the images of the Hidden Galaxy posted over the last year or so, it doesn't seem so hidden anymore?

I hope it improves a little after the 25th or there are going to be a lot of frustrated folks who received a telescope for Christmas.

Well, if you are right, I'll pick one up used after Christmas to see what all the fuss is about, but it will take a while for all of those "May contain clouds" stickers to wear off.

£550 on a present you will tire of by February? I thought there was a cost of living crisis?

The fact that these products are going like hot cakes does say something about the process. The owners still want some faff, even if it is controlled, otherwise they would be spending their hard earned cash on remote imaging data sets.

Fair point but when you retire, you need faff.

Hey, it’s the faff that makes it pleasurable.😉

No worries, I should have seen the "Edited" comment at the bottom of the post.