han59

A club member has a Takahashi FSQ106 ED telescope. Visual and photographic performance in the native F5 mode is good. He has also an extender ExtenderQ1.6x (50.8) TKA36595. This changes the focal ratio to F8. Visually the extender performance was good. It is advertised as: Image circle 44 mm, Back focus 117.5 mm, The Takahashi Extender QE 1.6X is a combination optical extender and field flattener designed specifically for the FSQ-106EDX4 telescope. The five optical element design allows for high magnification with a flat field and little chromatic aberration. The Extender QE is ideal for high magnification lunar and planetary visual observation, as well as CCD imaging. The Extender QE features a 2 inch barrel. We have tested the setup with a ZWO ASI294 camera. This camera has a sensor size of 21.63mm diagonal This is within the specification of the specified 44 mm image circle of the extender. Below a magnified corner of an image at F5 and F8: The results at F8 are very poor. Oval stars in all the four corners are pointing to the center. The back focus distance was correct and tested with plate solving. Via the local Takahasi representative, the European sales representative in France was contacted and this was there reaction: There is no defect on the extender, the problem is that it was designed in 2005 when CCD cameras had very big pixels. It is not giving good results now because of very small pixels from current CCD cameras, replacing the extender would not solve the problem. The sales representative Europe confirms the extender poor performance even with an smaller image circle then specified. The sales argument from Takahashi ,,suitable for CCD imaging'' is clearly incorrect !

don4l, In ASTAP version 0.9.211 is the font for HyperLeda annotation fixed at 8. I hope you like it. Feedback is welcome. kirkster501, Yes and each has galaxy has typical 100.000 million stars.

Yes you remind me , I have put that in the hint and manual. The font is depending on the zoom factor. Maybe it is better for HyperLeda annotation to make fontsize always small. I did the same for M13. Here a part of the image:

Platesolve2 is a good solver but as soon you are a degree or more off, it takes ages to find a solution. He requires blind solve capabilities.

Hi don4l. Yes ASTAP is faster then Astrometry.net. I didn't want talk Fraunhoffer into that since he has already "all sky platesolver " up and running. The image angle reported by ASTAP is the "PA" where north is 0 degrees and then the angle increases counter clockwise. This is the convention in astronomy. The north & east arrow indicator is easier to understand Anthonyexmouth, user Fraunhoffer has no wifi so can't use online tools.

Probably the easiest way to find you way is to load the solved FITS image in a planetarium program. They will read the FITS header for the celestial location and plot the image in a map You can either load the image or set the image path in a planetarium program to the solved image folder and rescan of refresh the map. Planetarium programs Carte Du Ciel en HNSKY can do this. Since the images will have no initial position, solving could take some time, so you have to be a little patient. If you have mechanical indicating RA, DEC scales, calibrating them on a bright known star will be much faster and convenient or just try star hopping. Han

This image was made two days ago when the M5 global cluster was near the meridian. The second image shows by annotation how many galaxies are hidden within the image. Most galaxies are recognisable. It is quite astounding how much is visible. Unfortunately I can post only compressed JPEG images, but the full resolution link is already better. Annotation by the latest version of the ASTAP program using the HyperLeda database. -- Han Equipment: Telescoop 100 mm APO astrograph APO100Q, F5,8 Camera ASI1600MM-Cool Exposure: 28 x 50 sec Software CCDciel, ASTAP Datum: 2019-4-28 full resolution Full resolution:

Once your started programming in a language/integrated development environment (IDE) it is very difficult to switch and you could be locked to Windows or an other operating system or facing fading compiler support. I assume most start coding in an environment they like or are used to and don't consider multi platform support until much later. The development of NINA goes very fast and programmers seems to be permanent online for support so this promises a great future. (for Windows users only )

For the ASI1600, in most cases you better stick to unity gain=139, offset 21. Especially if you imaging deepsky and want to use the full 12 bit range. All other settings give less range. Your light , flats and darks should be made with the same settings.

I would suggest to start with installing Linux in a virtual machine. I use the free VMware workstation player for that. Install it under Win10, and download a Linux ISO and install it in the player. Then if you install the included VMware tools you can also copy and paste between Windows and Linux. The virtual machine itself you can copy to the computer in your obervatory and run it there again under Win10 or what you have or give to a friend. By this you can try different Linux flavors and just delete copy or keep as as many as you wish or run even in parallel. (typical disksize required 10 gbytes, 6 gbytes minimum) A computer with 4 gbyte ram or even 2 gbytes will work fine with Win10 and a virtual machine. For Windows users maybe, a Linux flavor with LXDE like Lubuntu as interface will be actractive and easier to use. You could also download and try "Astronomy Linux ", an Ubuntu with already many astronomy programs installed The Linux in the virtual machine will be able to control your telescope and have access to internet. It is easier to install and experiment then dual boot and removal is easy if you don't like it. Han

This is an interesting development. I think in the introduction or documentation you should describe a little more about the pre-conditions and installation. As far I understand you need either: 1) A Linux system with a local astrometry.net installed. 2) Win10 64 bit Creators edition, Linux sub system installed. E.g. you could use my guideline as a start: http://www.hnsky.org/linux_subsyst.htm 3) Windows system with Cygwin version of Astrometry.net v0.38 ?? Programs should be able to execute astrometry.net locally but this will help for the programs which only have a web interface to astrometry.net. Han

Good the read that there is interest in Linux. I just release the first Linux version of the Hallo Northern sky planetarium program. See thread Linux is also new for me. It is compiled for AMD64 and the executable in this latest version is called "hnsky". Just unzip the files somewhere at your home drive. In future, I will compile more versions then just AMD64. If your are in need for a 32 bit version, send me an email or respond to above thread and I will include it. Any feedback is most welcome. Han