tomato

Brilliant thanks! I was trying to work out how I could get the solved image annotated in PI.

I blind solved the image successfully with Astrometry.net and then used the co-ordinates of a named star in the FOV to try and solve it in the PI script, but it still wouldn’t have it. I’m not sure how much effect the parallax would have, I used my post code in the unistellaroptics site and it seemed to identify my location. I had both scopes imaging on the dual rig so I will produce a deeper animation, but I am coming round to the conclusion that I wasn’t imaging the required location on the sky.😵‍💫

Thanks for this, it could explain a lot. This is the site where I obtained the co-ordinates from for my local time and location: https://unistellaroptics.com/observe-jwst/ Maybe not the most reliable? Is that my image you have overlaid the grid? May I ask how you solved it, as I couldn’t solve it using the Pixinsight Imagesolver script no matter I hard I tried.

Yes the Esprit 150/QHY268c combination gives a 1.26 x 0.86 degree FOV.

I think that one looks like a cosmic ray hit to me.

Thanks for having a look, to quote the West Midlands vernacular, I go boz eyed after a while. Here are the 4 jpegs, if this helps.

Sorry if this a bit of a fraudulent post, as I can't be certain the JWST is on here. This is an animation of 4 frames covering around 40 mins taken at 20:45 to 21:25 on 29.12.21 with the Esprit 150/QHY268c, resolution 0.714 arcsec/pixel, each sub 120 secs. The scope was pointing initially at RA 06 hrs 08 mins 55 secs, DEC -0 deg 13 mins 44 sec, I say initially because I was imaging through frequent clouds and the guiding was lost on numerous occasions, hence the drift evident in the animation. Please have a go and do reply if you find anything, needless to say I have been looking for a while and found no likely candidates...

I’m amazed that if the bullets went right through they didn’t do catastrophic damage to the mirror, maybe they ricocheted off the glass without going through, a 2.7m mirror will be quite thick. I encountered a few disgruntled employees in my career, but thankfully none of them with hand guns.

Thanks Steve, I was trying all last night to locate it on my subs, no tiny trailed object in the stack, I then moved onto the blink tool in Pixinsight. For some reason PI wouldn’t platesolve any of my subs or the one you posted, but Astrometry was successful, so I’m pretty sure I’m looking in the right place. I will try and make a Gif today and post it so folks can have a go at trying to find the JWST.

Nice one, as you say an abundance of signal provided by the RASA. It does me good from time to time look at my efforts from 7 years ago, just to remind me there has been some benefit from all that spend that has taken place.

Good to hear. Although I have a 268c I didn’t contribute to the thread as I couldn’t think of anything new to suggest. I would never have thought the order in which you install the software was critical, but there you go. Now If only there was someone we could call about the clouds.

Despite the jet stream's best efforts I have managed to capture about 45 mins of subs tonight in an attempt to capture the JWST. I have estimated I'm looking for a trail of about 50 pixels long in an image of 26 million. I presume when stacking in APP I need to disable all of the clever sigma clipping routines which eliminate satellite trails as this will bin my JWST trail also? Any tips on what I should be disabling etc, would be much appreciated.

Will the apparent brightness increase when the sun shield is fully deployed? I suppose it depends on it’s orientation with respect to us looking at it from Earth? I might just get a chance to capture a few subs tonight…

I agree it’s the sensible thing to do, particularly if the electricity cost is offset in the ways you describe. I note from my humidity logger that peak values tend to occur at the same times of the day, so if you need to make economies, running the dehumidifier on a timer two or four times in a 24 hour period might be the way to go. Do they have dehumidifiers at Pixel Skies I wonder? Clear skies and no damp to contend with, wouldn’t that be nice?

This might go against the general consensus, but with regard to the OP’s question, just how important is keeping an observatory at a constant (low) humidity? I guess that leads to the question how vulnerable is the kit to high humidity and more importantly, condensation. I know my kit can be soaked in moisture after a lengthy imaging session, and so you would like to think that Astro gear would be designed to cope with a moisture laden environment. I’m sure keeping the kit in a benign controlled environment for as much time as possible will prolong the general as new cosmetic appearance, but what lasting damage is done? I don’t run my dehumidifier 24/7 and after 3 years the kit looks fine and is still all functioning and there are no blooms or growths on the optics. I do however, religiously keep the air tight dust caps on the scopes at all times when not in use (~90% of the time). My 7 year old Mesu mount has some slight surface rusting on the 4 screws that secure the Sitech cover but apart from that it looks the same as when it came out of the shipping crate. As for PC hardware, my laptops and monitor are in an adjacent shed, which is only heated when I’m in it, and they are all still going strong after 3 years. Modern cars are bristling with sensors, cameras and electronics, but not many of them are kept in an air conditioned garage when not in use. Ok, for about £6 per month to run the dehumidifier, you can argue why take the chance with all that expensive gear, but in the interests of energy conservation and directing more funds to the Astro spend pot, is their a demonstrable benefit or is it done because it just feels like the right thing to do in these damp islands?

If the UK weather in 2022 continues to be as unfavourable for astronomy as it was in 2021, I can see my enthusiasm for remote imaging growing and hence could make some plans to move into this.

Great image, lots of faint nebulosity by combining the data.

MCC1b completed successfully, burn duration 9 mins 27 secs.👍

You’re correct, they did produce a dual sensor camera. If I recall correctly I purchased an ST-4 from SBIG in 1991, I actually got a call from them asking if I wanted to be their UK dealer! There was one of the cross roads moments in my life path.😊

I’m sure those temperatures will come with a host of problems, but I would be prepared to give them a try, so fed up am I with our seemingly endless grey, damp, mild conditions in the UK. Imagine, setting the cameras to run at -20 C and they would need to warm up!

SBIG were one of the pioneers, still have my ST-4 from their first production run, but you rarely see their cameras mentioned on SGL now.

Spare a thought for all those technicians in bunny suits fussing around it every day for that last ten years or so, what are they going to do now?

Yes, when I watched that huge piece of super high technology coasting away into the blackness of space all on it’s own, I sort of understood why the scientists and engineers took so long getting it ready for that moment.

Thanks for the photos link. I’m presuming it’s got more hard scientific telemetry than you can shake a stick at, but maybe NASA doesn’t have the same YouTube generation PR mindset that seems to exist over at SpaceX.

First course correction burn all good apparently.👍