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MattJenko

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Everything posted by MattJenko

  1. This outbuilding is in inland southern france, so mild winters and hot summers. I see the view that isolation (at least in terms of piers rather than pandemics) is not represented well here. I hoped as much and will do some basic experiments myself and assume that if the building is stable enough, which it is, then its base will do for my modest astronomical observations. The piers (thinking of 2) will need to be about 8-10 feet high, but thinking brick chimney style would work well for me. Thanks again, this forum never ceases to impress me.
  2. Thanks for all the input! I'll try out the tripod on base approach and see what happens. It is next to a country lane which has the occasional tractor going past, but nothing in the evenings. If all that means is to double check polar alignment periodically, hopefully I can just base pier on base.
  3. I understand how a concrete pier, sunk deep into the ground below any frost line and the column not being attached to the surrounding building would give the most stable platform for a telescope, but how important is this really? I have an outbuilding which is brick built with a concrete base and I have been pondering converting this to an observatory. I am thinking one or two breeze block columns sitting on the concrete base and a first floor ROR, but wondering how much I would be missing in terms of end result if I went the far more effort route and try and smash through the floor to sink in a more formal base. Cheers Matt
  4. This hobby is such a mix of the insanely fine-grained technical and the crude! Identifying a persistent imaging issue with a shake :). Glad you nailed this without recourse to opening the wallet. A success for persistence.
  5. Rather than straight up copying another area over your donuts, you could you context fill and allow PS to do a more natural job. Nothing beats good calibration frames though.
  6. Binning should be used when you can afford to lose resolution, to better match pixel size to the available seeing/sky angle. I think it is primarily used to match sensors to focal lengths. An example would be an Atik 460 with 4.54 micron pixels on an RC6 scope of 1360 native focal length. This means that you would be imaging at 0.69 arc secs/pixel, which is pretty unachievable with UK skies. A more suitable resolution would be to bin 2x2 giving a 9.08 micron pixel and a 1.4 arsec/pixel resolution, much more manageable and sensible. Different sensor types bin in different ways, so a 2x2 binned CCD will actually read out the 4 pixels as a single pixel value, minimising read noise, whereas a CMOS sensor would read out each pixel separately and combine afterwards, giving different characteristics. One way to take advantage of binning without losing resolution in a final image is to take Luminance subs with no binning and then use 2x2 binning and shorter RGB subs for the colour, which I have done with a fair degree of success in the past. All the comments on extra flats/darks etc are spot on too. Cheers Matt
  7. Assuming that it is this one. Gemini Telescopes I have been salivating over the MoFoD for years!
  8. Not seen one of these posted yet, I present to you the Berlebach mini.
  9. Doesn't have to be a 1600 type CMOS camera for galaxies. I would keep the scope and don't bother about narrow band either, as you won't get a big enough benefit from NB filters on galaxies. Second hand is a great option and there is a QHY8 for £450 for example (admittedly an OSC sensor). There is even an Atik 414ex mono there below budget too. I would then get a manual filter wheel and a L filter and go to town on those galaxies and add RGB when you can find a bargain, as you could add colour from DSLR if you wanted in the interim.
  10. I loved Ronen Plessers "Introduction to Astronomy" online course from Duke University a few years ago. It was a free to enroll one back when I did it.
  11. You can remove ini files using the EQMOD tools as well, as well as back them up/restore etc if you don't want to root around in filesystems deleting stuff manually.
  12. When I was in the area I was a member of the North Essex Astro Society and have to say it was an extremely positive experience. Helped out with some outreach observing nights at local schools, helped with some public outreach observing events at a local reservoir with Essex Wildlife Trust and various solar viewing days at local events. There is a weekly club night at the society's observatory dome where people are more than welcome to bring own scopes as well, be it beginners or more advanced imagers and to be honest, with the monthly talks etc, there was more being organised than I could attend. Seems like a bit of research into the local options for societies is in order, and I was one of the lucky ones, but from my experience, a good one is more than worth it.
  13. Seems to be in the calibrated Lum subs I got from iTelesceope. There appears to be a similar effect on the Glob itself with a faint light shadow under the glob center itself. Would love to get a chance to see this with my own eyes. Thanks Rob, long time, and yes, although I would prefer some of my own subs, despite the ones from iTelescope being rather nice! That FLI 16800 chip really makes my little Atik feel a little inferior...
  14. Bit of iTelescope action - 4 hours LRGB on T32. 3 min L subs and 60 sec RGB.
  15. The 130pds is a stocky little thing, I would worry more about the ED80 (which I once very happily owned for a few years) than the little newt.
  16. Bit left field, but how about a fully loaded Explorer 130PDS. Proven amazing little scope, 650mm FL, works wonderfully on your HEQ5 and because the OTA is cheap so you could splash out on awesome focuser and dew heaters etc etc.
  17. When you attach your 450D, you are in effect using the 150PDS as the lens, you wouldn't attach another. If you did, you would end up in a world of distortion and pain as you try and focus the camera on the focal point of the telescope - don't do it, let alone the issues in trying to attach it all together. Because you are using the scope as a prime lens, the focal length is fixed, as is the aperture, so the DSLR options you have are ISO setting. This is always good for some debate, but you want to keep it as low as you can. I have a 450d as well, and found that 400 or 800 is the best compromise between sensitivity and image crushing noise. The field of view you have is also fixed, which makes finding objects to frame actually very easy, just look at astronomy.tools and choose objects and see how they might fit. I actually think the Skywatcher coma corrector is a x0.9 reducer as well, so the real field of view might be bigger, but this will be close enough.
  18. Alpy 600. Time is very short for lovely images at the moment but my desire to give something back in the form of useful observations is growing...
  19. My dual setup. Bit different in that I don't image with both at same time, but both can act as either the guider or the main imager so it is a flexible setup in that depending on what I want to image, I can use either. I have subsequently added an Eagle controller, so the whole thing can just be put on the mount and plugged in. AA115 with Atik 414ex and TS60ED with ASI1600.
  20. I actually found @kirkster501 's youtube tutorials on RC collimation really useful for my little RC6. Youtube RC collimation
  21. The poor little things on the moon are not active, they are shutdown and just won't die straight away. To give anything a chance of doing more than last a bit in the lead melting furnace of Venus, they would need a considerable head start I think.
  22. I want to see a Venus terraforming program started. The lessons to be learnt are huge and rather relevant.
  23. I found that Canon kit lenses (and others) would easily slip slightly when in manual focus mode. Meaning you get great focus and then when coming to start imaging, it gets a knock and only has to slip a tiny amount. Using some duct tape when doing the focus actually helped me fix that focus position and made sure it wasn't slippage when moving the camera which caused the slight defocussing.
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