Jim Smith

I used to take moon shots on my driven equatorial mount but last night I used a manual alt-az mount. I took 10 batches of 15 exposures at one second intervals. This took about 8 minutes in total as I had to manually realign the telescope between batches. I tried to process all 150 images in Pipp and Autostakkert but the field rotation gave me a rather odd result with duplicated craters. See top and bottom of lower, second image. So I processed just 20 consecutive images and stacked the best 10. I tweaked the result in Affinity Photo to give me the upper image which I am pretty happy with. But, is there a way of using all 150 images with some sort of "derotation" process? Thanks, Jim 203mm Classic Cassegrain - Nikon Z6 - 1/500s - ISO800

I gave in and bought a Seestar S50. Now I can see spiral structure easily! The attached image is 7 minutes stacked in camera but spiral arms are visible even on one 10 second exposure.

I don't think the phone ever connected to the WiFi of the Seestar. If it did it didn't ask me first and the phone always showed that it was connected to my usual home WiFi router,

Yes. I discovered that in order to activate successfully on my Google Pixel 7 Pro I had to have "Mobile Data" set to "ON" even though the phone was already connected to the internet via Wi Fi. I have no idea why that should be necessary!

Has anybody got stuck on the "Activation failed" message? I tried the app on both my Pixel 7 Pro and my iPad and neither could complete the activation.

I have a pair of Mk IIs which have now gone sticky so I might try the alcohol rub. The other problem I have is that the eyepieces fog up as soon as I raise them to my eyes. (My 8x40 Olympus binoculars do not.) Has anybody else had and hopefully, cured this problem? Jim

This from ZWO when asked the exact same question... "Simon Lewis (ZWO) Sep 26, 2023, 4:11 PM EDT hi Jim thanks for the question this is the number of pixels for the main camera thanks Simon " It seems there are two schools of thought!

I'm soon to try out my new Asiair mini. I have a question about dithering... When you choose the maximum number of pixels for dithering moves, are you specifying main camera pixels or guide camera pixels? Thanks in advance, Jim

Curious. I just tried again from my usual UK ip address and it still doesn't work.

Thanks. I tried a non-UK ip address and it worked just fine!

Does anybody know where to successfully download Asiair Studio for windows? https://dl.zwoastro.com/software?app=ASIStudio&platform=windows64&region=Overseas doesn't work for me. Thanks, Jim

Fforest Fields...

I asked Stellarium Labs and got a definitive answer... "Hello. Thank you for reaching out to us. Right now, you can only adjust how much more or less satellite labels you can see in the app by pressing the button on the lower left corner of the screen then long press the Labels button and adjust the slider for Satellites We will take note of this as a suggestion and take everything into consideration for future updates. If you have more suggestions or features you wish to see or improve or if you encounter any issues, feel free to email us again and we will be happy to assist."

Yes, I tried that. It gets rid of the labels on the satellites but not the satellites themselves.

I can't find a way on my Android phone either. Pity. I rather liked the app apart from the satellites whizzing across the screen all the time.

Can I turn off satellites being displayed in Stellarium Mobile?

It was clear last night, so I had my first attempt at galaxy spiral arm spotting with my new 10" Dobsonian under my Bortle 4 sky. I did a collimation in the afternoon. From my garden M51 was not obscured by trees so that was my target. I set up at 22:00 but waited until 23:00 for the moon to set, the mirror to cool and my eyes to adapt to darkness. I put my dark hood over my head, popped in a 25mm eyepiece and found M51 pretty easily...two distinct fuzzy blobs in a less obvious ovalish, fuzzy patch. Over the next half an hour I continued observing also trying 18mm and 12mm eyepieces. I have to report that I did not see any spiral pattern of any sort. However, I noticed that the eyepiece field stop was clearly visible with the sky background appearing quite light. Sunlight reflected off particles in the atmosphere perhaps? I think I may have more luck when M51 is higher in the sky and/or the Sun and Moon are further below the horizon.

OK. M33, M51 and M81 it is. I've thought of another question! Is there a best focal length of eyepiece to use to spot subtle features? Is a higher magnification better?

I took delivery of my StellaLyra 10" Dobsonian. I've added two handles to the base and Farpoint handles/straps on the tube. It seems quite manageable over short distances. I think the 12" would have been too heavy and awkward for me. There wasn't enough room for a Telrad between the focusser and the finderscope but a Rigel QuikFinder fits in well. First light was last night with just enough time to see encouraging views of Mizar, M13 and Saturn before the clouds rolled in from the East. So...in my quest to see galaxy spiral arms through an eyepiece, not a camera...which galaxy is the best one to try?

I've not tried EAA for a while but as it was clear... 34 x 15 seconds saved stack from Sharpcap, uncropped. I'm not happy with the shuttlecock shaped stars or hot pixels but it's a start.

Thanks for all of the suggestions and offers of help. I will probably keep it in a garden storage box about 12 feet from where I will set it up so there shouldn't be too much of a struggle. However I've decided to go for 10" instead of 12" to be on the safe side. I can probably forget those spiral arms unless I get some unusually good conditions.

Yes, I was a bit worried about the size. Perhaps an Explore Scientific Ultra Light 12" Dobsonian Telescope Gen II would be more manageable than most.

Thanks for all of the comments. I'm thinking that with my 67 year old eyes, a 12" Dobsonian might give me a chance on a good night!

If I wanted to make out the spiral arms in a galaxy or two from my Bortle 4 garden on a night of good seeing, what aperture 'scope would I need? Thanks, Jim

Thanks everyone. On my one the battery is indeed under the brightness adjustment wheel. However, I had first undone the 4 tiny screws holding the back cover on. With that cover off it makes access to the little plastic window, through which the light shines, much easier. I stuck a piece of blue, translucent sticky backed plastic over it to dim the light. I've always found the little dot to be too bright.