tomato

Just seen that my new ASI 678 camera comes with a sexy red round USB cable. When did ZWO make the switch from the flat cables (which are great for a RASA) and was it because of customer feedback I wonder?

Yup, forecast is not good, but this is a UK star party.😉 Good job I’m going with Tomatobro in two cars, with the scopes packed in my car, there is no room for the camping gear.

Nah, I think the top one has been over processed.😉

The subject is nicely framed, it is focussed well, the core is not too overblown in comparison to the outer arms region, the dust lanes are visible, the satellite galaxies show up well, the stars are tight and there is good colour. Where is the scrap in that?👍🏼

Ok 21” aperture helps a lot, but it looks sharper than images taken with the HST, I remain impressed.

Some great images here: Astronomy Photographer of the Year: Huge plasma arc wins https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-66807814 The standouts for me are the Jupiter and Mars set images, how were they taken from the bottom of our atmosphere?

I have used UV/IR cut filters from Baader, Altair Astro and Astro essentials, with the same scope and camera I can’t see any real difference between them.

They are wonderful images, both. If I had to choose I think I would go with second. I’m not averse to using any software, even the Windows photo editor, although my ancient copy of PS CS2 has fallen by the wayside, with the advent of the more price friendly Affinity Photo.

That’s the default setting, you need enough offset to give you a bit of clear space on the left hand side of the exposure histogram, 768 does this nicely on most subjects.

I think a SGL imaging challenge on obscure targets would be a nice idea, say anything that gets 10 or less hits on a search of SGL would be eligible. Olly, Vdb129 would qualify, yours is the only hit currently on SGL, for comparison M42 has 5535…

I have a RisingCam 571 OSC camera (Touptek clone) running with NINA, the settings I use are: Gain 100 Offset 768 USB limit 2 I run the camera at -10 deg C and use 2 min exposures for Broadband imaging and 3 min exposure for NB (dual band filter).

I have a dual Esprit 150 rig with either ASI178 (for small galaxies) or QHY268 cameras. It takes a bit of setting up and managing to prevent flexture between the two scopes but I wouldn’t go back to a single scope, I want to capture as much data as possible when we get a clear night.

I caught the Apollo 13 episodes, they were excellent.

Here is my quick effort, channels combined in APP, processed in PI and AP. There were a lot of hot pixels in the original combined image, some of which have been toned down by NXT.

One of the hazards of going really deep I suppose, but look at the that rarely imaged extra detail in the nebula, wonderful!

Great image!👍 I’m relieved to see that I’m not the only imager to use the UK weather as a reason to set up a duel rig rather than propose the opposite argument.

I think the HST has demonstrated that there is no such thing as a patch of empty sky, but it does depend on how deep you can go. The September edition of Astronomy Now featured the square of Pegasus, seven pages of deep sky objects to go at.

APP (and PI) do some clever gradient smoothing between the panels to manage the joins between them if taken under different sky conditions, does ASTAP do something similar?

As the OP, I certainly didn’t intend this to be a visual vs imaging thread. I personally have some concerns for the future of the hobby in all it’s forms when I look at the proportion of senior citizens who make up the attendance at the Astro shows, maybe that says more about the level of disposable income of the current generation of pensioners rather than anything else. I still think future generations will be less inclined to enjoy the pure visual astronomy experience, my evidence for this is that a lot of folks now seem to prefer taking video clips of a live event on their smartphones rather than experiencing it with their own eyes. The urge to “capture and post” seems strong these days.

At least with a OSC camera in 1-2 hours you will get something, unless you can be more patient and dedicate two or three nights to the same subject. If your budget is limited and you are prepared to take the risk of purchasing direct from China, the Touptek or RisingCam offerings based on the IMX533 or 571 sensors are worth a look. I would persevere with the guiding, it might not be as critical as it once was with long exposure CCD cameras, but it still makes a significant improvement to your end results.

+1 for at least trying to find a third party who might be able to repair it, given the delay and on going costs you are incurring, what have you got to lose? Of course, finding someone who could repair it is the challenge, there are enterprising folks on here who have done wonders with SW mount control boards but they are a much higher volume product and firmware etc is readily accessible.

Imaging small galaxies will always be a challenge of equipment, location and conditions, but in my book that’s what makes it interesting. We’ll never match the results of the professionals but with the recent developments in cameras and processing software I think we are still seeing improvements in this branch of AP. Best wishes with your EdgeHD project, please keep us posted.

The uncooled ASI178 cameras were retrofitted with Peltier coolers, not so much to do sub zero imaging but more to maintain a constant temperature so that the calibration frames are more effective, and the amp glow is then not really a problem.

Further to my recent post re the RASA8 small target imaging capabilities, I will give it a go with that scope too. I know Vlaiv said the central obstruction doesn’t make any significant difference, but Celestron don’t recommend using the RASA8 with a DSLR and that’s effectively the obstruction I currently have with the 178 fitted with the Peltier cooler. It will be fun to try.😊

I image small galaxies with an Esprit 150/ASI178 mono dual rig, usually binned 2x2 so imaging at 0.94 arcsec per pixel. The ASI 678 OSC camera is described as being the successor to the 178, it has smaller pixels and no amp glow so I am going to try to use it to capture RGB alongside a 178 for Lum, thereby avoiding the dreaded cloud induced missing channel syndrome. The colour data will be binned in software. If I ever want to try lunar, planetary or the ISS, then I should have a suitable camera.