tomato

The UK will have even less clear nights than it does now, that's just about possible.

A lovely deep M31. I must admit I fell foul of not reading the whole thread, I read the first reply and zoomed in on the stars and couldn't see anything wrong with them. I got there in the end.

This looks like the same atlas as used by Telescopius, at least the colour rendition is very similar.

Thanks Wim, yes it peaks at 39 degrees altitude from my location so getting quality data is a bit of a challenge. Also the early evening imaging window coincides with the Xmas lights show and repeated outside lights illuminating the neighbour's pets doing their business, so not ideal.

Mrs Tomato always tries to get me an astro themed birthday present and this year she went one further to get something AP related. This is what she came up with, not specifically astro but I like the sentiment expressed, if only this were possible in the UK.

Thanks, with only 5 hrs of data, NoiseXterminator was put to good use.

Even though I said I wouldn't I briefly toyed with the idea of selling the SW 16" and putting the funds towards an ES UL 16". But... I would probably need to put upwards of £1K into the fund to make it happen, and after absorbing the available info it looks like the SW could be put on a diet for less than half that so that's the plan, hopefully this will now become a build progress thread.

Here is another seldom imaged irregular galaxy, not surprising really as it is both faint (magnitude 10) and small (15' across). It is a member of the Local Group and is at a distance of 2.4 million light years, so it is an interesting comparison to make with another Local Group galaxy, M31 which is a similar distance from us. This is a total of 5hrs integration LRGB with the Esprit150/ASI178 dual rig. I collected a couple of hours of Ha data last night under very poor conditions but it didn't add anything of significance to the image. It really deserves more integration but it seems like ages since I posted a new image so here it is, thanks for looking.

Thanks everyone, the gif quality is certainly not great, it comes out better when M1 is higher in the sky but it was the best data I could get before the challenge closing date. I did indeed get a set 7 Meccano for Christmas back in 1971, the first thing I made was a model of the Lunar Rover.🙂

Any target is a joy to look at if the data capture and processing has been executed to a high standard, as in this example.

That’s a great M31, I think the colour balance is spot on. I have a version with a similar integration time and like you I somehow thought the galaxy would be more prominent but as has been said before this subject is a lot trickier to image than people might expect.

I have operated two mounts simultaneously and a big dual rig, in terms of least hassle I prefer the dual rig. Sure, getting the FOVs aligned is a hassle but only needs to be done once. The second scope just dumbly takes images, no need to worry about finding the target or guiding.

A couple of nights ago my guiding was 33% better after the flip but I was imaging a target only ~30 degrees above the horizon and the guiding was improving prior to the flip, so seeing was playing a big part, I think.

Great idea, the trouble is I already have a dome and warm room shed in the back garden, another sentry box for my Dobsonian might be a shed too far.

I suppose the problem is we can’t use the own eyes test on most Astro based images.

But who processes data by a 100% precisely defined mathematical workflow? If we did wouldn’t we all get precisely the same result if we started with the same data? The irony is that if we want to process the data purely by a defined mathematical based workflow, wouldn’t this best be left to a machine?

If you get your rig sorted then data capture is pretty straightforward, although my unattended sessions rarely deliver data as good as those where I sit with the scopes throughout the session. Like it or not, I think the time where we can let the software alone deliver an optimum image from the data supplied is fast approaching. But that’s Ok, I can choose to do that or not, just as I can choose to manually find the object or focus during the data capture.

I presume you image from your location in the North West of England, so I am sure you will agree with me that getting data from the UK, good or indifferent, is never easy.😉

As someone who started out with emulsion film and manual guiding, it is just another technological advance as far as I am concerned. I wasn't really around AP when the digital revolution got going, but was there a backlash against the principle of stacking multiple frames to improve SNR, or did folks just embrace it?

Wow, that’s impressive, but it will no doubt revive the debate on whether these “fix it” tools are ethical. Personally I’m fine with them.

For once, I’ll choose a nebula image, M78. The data was captured back in January but recently I managed to do a bit of Photoshop type processing on it to show some of the detail in the bright areas.

Agreed, after I posted I thought about it and realised you can only put them in one way, I don’t think there is sufficient clearance with the FW housing to put them in on the other side of the carousel, even if you wanted to. Beats me why NB filters would be treated different to LRGB.

I must admit I have always put mounted filters LRGB and NB, onto the same side of the filter wheel carousel, but then the manufacturer could put the filter into the mounting ring the correct way round to enable this. I await further posts with interest.

Awesome, thanks for posting. Excuse my ignorance but what are the frequent clunking sounds?

Not sure a final image is always that subjective, NB nebula images with reduced stars and “false colour” palettes perhaps being the exception. It’s not often on SGL that a well respected imager posts an image and gets numerous replies saying this or that should be tweaked, most just heap praise, quite justifiably on the OP. Maybe folks don’t like to make critical comments as, like me, they don’t feel sufficiently competent to do so. As for always having a go yourself, I support that approach, because as you point out, this is how most people learn and improve a skill. However, it is sometimes good to know your limitations. Some years ago my brother embarked on a project to make a long case clock. He had the tools and skill set to make the movement but he knew his cabinet making skills were not to the same high standard so he farmed this part of the project out with the result that the finished article was not compromised, the right decision in my view.