tomato

Astrobiscuit’s project was the Big Amateur Telescope, BAT, he set up a forum on Discord and several targets were attempted, with quite a bit of success. The results of the first target M27, are on here somewhere. I participated in the first one but the traffic on Discord grew exponentially and I’m afraid I couldn’t keep up, one Astro forum is enough for me.

Yes, your day time temperatures must be crazy, hope the vast array of kit there suffers no adverse effects.

Excellent result as always, Peter. What temperature can you run the camera at in the current extreme heat being experienced in Spain?

Great detail in the broom, making full use of the photon gathering capability of the RASA11.👍

I think not all of the NINA folks on Discord agree with the adage “there is no such thing as a dumb question”, but if you can get past that you will get the information you need.

Just to add to the discussion I purchased a used LT 80 StarSense from a Cash Converters shop, I checked the code was still active in the shop before purchase. A better engineered copy of the phone holder was made for my SW Dob and the LT 80 complete with working StarSense was then gifted to my granddaughter. Before purchase I made enquiries to see if Celestron had any imminent plans to market the StarSense as a stand alone unit, these came back negative.

I would go with the UV/IR cut filter from your location for imaging galaxies and let your processing software deal with any LP gradients.

Congratulations to all of the worthy winners. The galaxy challenge is always my favourite, thanks to all at SGL who take the time to set it up and do the the difficult job of judging the entries.👏

Yes, the RASA8/268c/NBZ is great combination for targets like the squid and bat nebulae. That image I posted is the full frame.

There doesn't seem to be much signal there for 33 hrs of integration with a dedicated OIII filter. I have stretched your image so hard I think some of the camera amp glow artefact is coming through on the right hand side. For comparison below is the blue channel from 210 mins with the RASA8/QHY268c/NBZ from a Bortle 5/6 location. Sure, the RASA has more aperture but I would have thought ~10 times the integration with a dedicated OIII filter and a mono camera might have done better? What is your LP level at your location?

Here is my contribution from historic data, just 171 mins with the RASA8/NBZ combination. I don't think it would stand more of a crop than this, but then again, a lot more of the subject was captured in the full FOV.

Yes, several short sessions on low power is my approach to non microwave friendly desiccant packs, otherwise they get very hot and the pouches become sodden with the expelled water. Overall though, it can be quicker and use less energy than the oven. But how about using an air fryer? They look like the ideal device for this purpose.

A widefield capture centred on NGC 6888, 65 x 3 mins with the SY135/RC571c/NBZ combination. Given the wide FOV, there are lots of other Cygnus DSOs in this image.

That’s a great image, reminds of one @gnomus (Steve Milne) posted on here a quite a few years back now:

Continuing my experiment of imaging relatively small targets with the RASA8/IMX571 OSC sensor/NBZ duel band filter, here is 88 x 3 mins on NGC 6888 and surrounding area. The close crop has been specifically processed using the X suite in PI to see how much detail (real or AI generated?) might be possible. I think I have some walking noise evident, trouble is I have the SY135 lens running alongside the RASA and with 3 minute subs, synced dithering in NINA will cost me a lot of imaging time.

I see we are a week in with no entries so I'll kick it off with an image of the Crescent Nebula, NGC 6888 in Cygnus. It is the best 88 x 3 mins from 105 subs with the RASA8/QHY268c/NBZ combination, so this is a radical crop and processed specifically for the nebula. Calibrated and stacked in APP, processed in PI with the X-suite, Histogram and Curves transformations, then further processing in Affinity Photo. I also have the full wide FOV image, but if I post that I'm assuming it would be classed as a duplicate entry?

I’m a massive fan of dual rigs for all of the reasons listed above. I run two Esprit 150s either with dual mono cameras, capturing L on one and RGB on the other, or two identical OSC cameras, or a mono and OSC. All of this kit is a co-owned project between myself and @Tomatobro. I also like the RASA8 and SY135 coupled with sensitive CMOS cameras, these go on the mount when the Esprits come off. Clear sky time in the UK is just too precious IMHO not to point two scopes at it if you are fortunate enough to have the kit required and a permanent set up. Big dual rigs need a high capacity well engineered mount (Mesu 200 was my choice) and a fair bit of upkeep if you regularly change the configuration like I do, but hey, I need something to do in my retirement.

Superb. I wonder if most of the whole sky would have this level of nebulosity and 'empty' patches would be few and far between? If you go deep enough is IFN just about everywhere?

Could you capture the Green Flash in the same session?

I posted this 3rd and for now final iteration just after the first abortive SGL reset and realised it got lost in the ether after Grant's second go. I think more data is required to get it much better, I also have seen quite a bit of Ha nebulosity in the vicinity of M27 from some SY135 data captured at the same time as the RASA8 image, so it might be tricky to get an even background when pushing the faint PN outer nebulosity. At least, that's my excuse.

Or in other words a StarSense phone holder. I purchased a used Explorer LT 80 to put the StarSense functionality onto my Flextube Dob, with the intention of handing the refractor sans StarSense over to my granddaughter as a surprise birthday present. However I was really impressed with how the StarSense app worked, it seemed just churlish to hand the scope over without this brilliant beginner’s feature. So @Tomatobro had a look at the unit and fabricated another using PCB, CF, a mountain bike phone holder and a rather pricey flat mirror from Edmund Scientific. It looks the business and works a treat on the Dob, and my granddaughter will be off and running first clear night after her birthday. 👍😊

I have to say I prefer the conventional palette image. I know NB nebulae images are fair game for changing the colour assignments, but I have seen too many “true” colour LRGB galaxy images to go with an off the wall palette.

I’m currently on a short break doing precisely nothing so found this appropriate reading material in a second hand book store.

Yes, an excellent result for a first DSO image.

We had a special platform to mate the SLR to the focuser of the telescope and it worked well. The damage to the primary is relatively minor but it really needs a new flat.