tomato

Here is a photo of the dome I posted on SGL at the time, it literally was in the middle of a field.

When looking for a property in Shropshire for our retirement move I came across a property on the Welsh border (Bortle 2/3) in our price range which already had a Pulsar Dome in the grounds. However, access was by 4x4, no mains drainage or electricity, a step too far for the Mrs.

Looks like this thread is becoming a good repository for images of this intriguing nebula. Here is mine with the SY135/IMX 571, with the RASA8 on the dust detail although nowhere near as deep as Goran’s image. There are so many stars it is almost like noise in the background.

Yes, the detail and colour are excellent, and the background is spot on. Any AI processing on this one?

This is not an easy object to capture depth and detail, so this is great result for 3 hrs and a DSLR. Longer subs and more of them will help a lot.

Sort of. A lot of the imaging was done unattended and when passing cloud interrupted the sequence and then restarted the object had strayed from the centre, so there was a lot of overlapping subs. I also had to crop the OSC data severely to get rid of the walking noise ‘frayed edges’. I would have preferred a wider field of view TBH. I also rotated the image through 90 degrees to put the rose upright.

Thanks for the positive feedback. I confess I was a little disappointed with the end result given 20 hrs of integration but my OSC data was poor and difficult to process and of course by comparing it to the HST image I have set the bar rather high. There are so many interesting Arp targets but the majority are unfortunately rather small.

Inspired by the absolutely stunning HST image of these interacting galaxies that appeared on the August page of my astronomy calendar, I thought I would give it a go. This is just under 20 hrs of data made up of 640 mins Lum with the ASI178/Esprit 150, 100 mins each R, G, B with the ASI178/Esprit 150 and 258 mins with my new ASI678 OSC/Esprit 150. The idea was to see if I could capture RGB more easily with the ASI678 but the stack had terrible walking noise which is difficult to eradicate with dither on a dual rig. This was resampled x3 to bring it closer in line with the binned mono data. Calibrated and stacked in APP, channels combined in APP then processed in PI and Affinity Photo. I have noticed that some intrepid imagers here on SGL have done blink comparison gifs with their final image and the HST equivalent, which compare very well IMHO. However, if you look up the HST image of the Rose, you will see why I won't be doing that any time soon.😪 Thanks for looking.

Amazing shots, I still am in awe of how you manage to track the ISS, it moves so darn fast!

If good data and lots of it is what you are after then selling up and renting a remote rig would seem to make sense, but I still like communing with the equipment too much to go that route. I kind of derive some weird enjoyment from getting a half decent image from the UK, our weather is yet another AP challenge that has to be overcome.

Yes, that’s it. It poses a bit of a challenge for an automated session, as I can only set the dome rotation in one direction. Currently I have to sit with it until the object has passed through this point.

I was imaging NGC 6946 recently which required me to set up the dome rotation rate to keep the scopes pointing through the aperture. I tracked its motion in Stellarium and noted that the galaxy had a retrograde motion initially until it was moving down vertically, ie no movement in Azimuth, then it started to move East to West. I know when an object is not moving in altitude this is called the meridian transit, but I wondered if the corresponding point where it changes direction in Azimuth has a name.

When an object reaches a position where it is moving parallel to the Altitude axis on the sky, so momentarily it is not changing it’s position in Azimuth, what is the specific astronomical description for this position?

More work but alternating sites kind of South East and North West would help with the travelling distances.

On the ‘regret buying a big aperture’ topic when I decided to buy a Dobsonian for visual astronomy my conclusion was aperture is everything so I purchased a second hand 16” flex tube. I thought I had a reasonably sized car but I only just got it in the back for the journey home. Sure enough, it is a right PITA to get it out the garage and trundle it round on its four wheel trolley for an observing session in the back garden, but oh my the views! I still don’t regard it as a bad purchase, it does what it says on the tin, if anything I wish I had kept on saving for a Stargate.

Five hour long astronomy related documentaries on Ch 5 in the space of a couple of months, maybe they have a new head of programme scheduling?

Just watched the first of three episodes, quite light weight but entertaining nonetheless. Tim seems to have taken Mr. Cox’s penchant for presenting from photogenic locations, but of course he has one up on him after viewing the earth from an all together different perspective.

This is going to look like a OO UK (circa last century) bashing session but I also purchased an 8” Schmidt Newtonian F4 in the late 1980’s and it was a nightmare. The large, heavy secondary was adjusted by three unsprung 4 mm screws, I don’t think it was ever properly collimated, the corrector plate looked like it had been bitten off a larger piece by a great white shark, and the secondary was held on with bath sealant which eventually failed, sending it crashing onto the primary.😱 I still have it, if some one fancies a restoration project…

Even with the myriad of processing repair tools now available, I don’t think you can get away with neglecting the first four of the six Fs as defined by Steve Richards: Find, Frame, Focus, Follow However, with fast wide field imaging set ups, am I going to spend a clear night (or three) fiddling with tilt and spacing when I can use software tools to fix peripheral stars, no, that’s not for me. Maybe that’s why I prefer small galaxy imaging, I only need the bit in the middle.😉 TBH, the recent AI based tools have transformed the imaging processing part of AP for me, turning it from an arduous frustrating grind to a smooth, fast and rewarding exercise, knowing that the end result will be superior to the starting input.

A great result. I also prefer not to dwell too long on a single target, but if you want a stunning image like this and you are under a city sky, I don’t think you have much choice but to put the hours in. You could argue a permanent observatory makes more sense in a light polluted location, as it will greatly increase your potential imaging time compared to setting up and taking down each session.

Alas the bright spell on Monday afternoon was followed by another sharp shower and the clear sky at 7 pm was threatened by yet another bank of cloud coming in from the West. So myself and Tomatobro made the call, packed up and was on the road by 8 pm by which time the clear sky had disappeared. Oh, and I forgot to pack the guidescope tube rings so at least I was spared the embarrassment of folks seeing it lashed to the counter weights with tie wraps and luggage straps.☺️ First light on my ASI 678 must wait a little longer…

I couldn’t make much improvement on your original post, big aperture, long FL quality scopes on quality mounts in an enviable location. I know you can access all of this remotely (if you have deep pockets) but the trouble is I do like to be next to the rig when it is doing it’s stuff. At some point in the future when I’m too old to keep changing my rig around, I might sell most of my existing set up and just get a Planewave. It’s a crazy notion, but no more so than owning a vintage car.

Amazing!

Monday night looking promising but… I have a new camera waiting in the box so that will probably scupper it, sorry everybody.

The ASI 178 came with flat USB 3 cables originally, there was a bit of correspondence on here about their quality, although I have never experienced any problems with them. I have never purchased a ZWO high end camera, preferring to go with the cheaper alternatives from China, so I don’t know if they were ever shipped with flat cables. I nearly put the s word in the title, just to see if it boosted the view numbers…☺️