tomato

I was a bit dismissive of smart imaging scopes when they first came on the market, from the point of view of price vs image quality, but at £500 the Seestar obliterates that argument. It’s a great introduction into imaging and it looks like quite a few previously visual only folks have purchased one to dip a toe in the imaging pool. Sure, it has its limitations if you want to progress further, but I don’t really think it is designed with that in mind. As for the “wait for the technology to mature” I remember buying an ST-4 CCD when they first came out, it was incredibly primitive by today’s standards but I enjoyed using it immensely, it was great being involved with the cutting edge.

The clouds have returned, so this is I'm afraid, another cobble together of old existing data, but staying with a target in keeping with Galaxy Season. NGC 3628, the Hamburger Galaxy, about 15 hrs of data made up of Esprit 150/ASI178 and Esprit 150/QHY268 subs. Aligned and stacked in APP, then processed in PI (RC tools) and Affinity Photo. It could be a trick of the light but there could perhaps be the faintest hint of the tidal tail at the bottom of the image?

It helps the cooling efficiency if you use thermally conductive cement to attach the cooler but it doesn’t come off easily and could invalidate your camera warranty if it had to be returned. That said, your 3M sticky pad might be optimised for the cooler application.

Certain telescope brands just love their red anodising, but as far as I am aware it doesn't improve optical performance one iota.

Thanks, I got the quote from a recently acquired copy of “Observing the Abell Galaxy Clusters”, so that number of 106 may be a visual estimation.

Very widefield mosaics such as Olly’s wonderful example do require some clever software to stitch them together for the reasons outlined by Elp above. Astro Pixel Processor does a good job although a I confess I’ve never attempted one covering such a huge expanse of sky.

After individual galaxies, clusters of them are my favourite targets, what I would call proper deep sky imaging. This is Abell 1656, centred on NGC 4889. 7.43 hrs of integration made up of 145 x 2 mins Lum with the Esprit150/QHY268mono and 78 x 2 mins RGB with the Esprit150/QHY268OSC. 80% of the subs were taken with an 80% illuminated moon about 40 degrees away. Calibrated and stacked in APP, processed in PI and Affinity Photo. For the record, I have one reference which says there are 106 galaxies in this cluster. Abell 1656's main claim to fame is that this cluster was studied by the astronomer Fritz Zwicky who published an article in 1933. Based on his determination of the distribution of relative velocities and some assumptions he was able to derive the gravitationally active mass from the velocity dispersion and found the mass to be appreciably larger than the total mass of luminous material in the cluster. Zwicky called this the missing matter in the cluster, we now refer to this material as Dark Matter, a key element in current cosmological thinking. Thanks for looking. Annotated Image

Here is the Coma Cluster of galaxies, centred on NGC 4889. 7.43 hrs of integration made up of 145 x 2 mins Lum with the Esprit150/QHY268mono and 78 x 2 mins RGB with the Esprit150/QHY268OSC. 80% of the subs were taken with an 80% illuminated moon about 40 degrees away. I haven't yet worked out how to display a mouse hover over annotated image so if you want to see an annotated version, please go to the Deep Sky imaging section. Calibrated and stacked in APP, processed in PI and Affinity Photo. For the record, I have one reference which says there are 106 galaxies in this cluster.

Agreed events always look a bit flat if they are put in an oversized venue, think of the recent "Wonka Experience". I was hoping to see a large Obsession type truss tube Dobsonian to look at the engineering close up but alas none were present. I did bag a copy of "Observing the Abell Galaxy Clusters" for the princely sum of £10 so happy with the visit.

Doesn’t look like the discount promo worked, still 5 in stock…

+1 for PC Specialist, I told them what I wanted the PC for and went with their recommendations. It cost around £1K back in 2019 (exc monitor) but is still up to the job 5 years on. I use APP for calibration and stacking, (inc mosaics) and Pixinsight for onward processing (the RC Xterminator tools are also an essential part of my workflow) and Affinity Photo, as I didn't want the pricing model of Photoshop.

Good news! I hope your repaired controller and Mesu are operating under the stars very soon.👍

I keep on imaging throughout the summer, the results aren’t great but I can’t let a clear night go to waste, even if it isn’t properly dark. The RC Camera awaiting repair is used with my SY135 lens, which normally gets an airing once galaxy season is over.

Got an update from Eddie, the damaged PCB is now with the manufacturer (Touptek) for repair. He told me not to worry but I can't see me getting it back before astro darkness disappears, but then we probably won't get a break in the clouds either, so what's the rush?

Hmm, I suspect there are other factors involved to put us at no. 20 but this is a politics free forum so I'll leave it there. Looking at you equipment list I'm sure you have plenty to keep you busy without looking after other people's set ups. Keep those widefield RASA images coming, it gives us all a lift when you post one.👍

Goran, I know you are at quite a Northerly latitude, which goes against the conventional thinking for these ventures, but have you considered offering imaging hosting at you location? You might get some interest from us perma cloud frustrated imagers here in the UK.😉

My QHY cameras are back on the scopes, with an ambient temperature of 6 deg C, both cameras controlled the sensor temperature correctly, running at 28% cooler power to maintain a temperature of -10 deg C. Weird…

Thanks for the tip, It does indeed have a HDR tool, I’ll take a look.

Great crisp detail in both M77 and NGC1055. I personally wouldn’t crop the bright stars out, that would bring the galaxy too close to the edge of the frame, and I like what they bring to the image.

I don’t take the OTA apart after every session, but I do change cameras from time to time, and take new flats each time I do this. I now don’t bother to take separate flats for the RGB filters as I find the Lum flat corrects for these subs just as well.

That’s interesting, my experience has been the opposite, ie all the dust motes that show up on the image reside on the sensor window rather than further up the optical train. My evidence for this is that flats taken with LRGB filters all show the same dust pattern.

I stayed out for 4 hours last night hoping a cloud front would clear so I could capture some new data, but no luck, so here is a combination of some existing Esprit 150/ASI178/IMX571 data, just to keep my hand in. 8.68 hrs combining the data in APP then further processing in PI and AP. The main aim was to preserve the dust detail in the core which I think is OK, but the fainter outer reaches have suffered accordingly.

Nice M101. I prefer the second image, the fainter spiral arms are much more distinct.

Is this OSC data or separate LRGB channels? If it’s the latter, do the separate R,G and B stacks look OK?

Any scope that’s located somewhere that gets 200+ clear nights a year. I’m working on it…