TakMan

Just back from a busy few days in London with the wife... Zoo on Saturday and then off to Pudding Mill Lane on Sunday to enjoy the ABBA Voyage concert at 1pm, which I have to say was really excellent.... like they were on stage, which of course is the whole point of the experience! https://lightroom.uk/whats-on/the-moonwalkers/ Today, Monday, I'd already booked tickets to 'The Moonwalkers' show at Lightroom (From Apollo to Artemis), a short walk behind the back of Kings Cross station. Located in a very nicely rejuvenated region (like a posher Gas Street Basin in Birmingham). Believe the show's run has been extended, so if you're in the area, something else highly recommended - we both found it quite moving. The Official Trailer is Here (48seconds): The Moonwalkers_ A Journey With Tom Hanks - Full Trailer.mp4 Even managed a visit afterwards (well, I went up to reception), to Central Saint Martins arts college (somewhere I wasn't good enough to consider going many moons ago - I did Bournville instead, behind the Cadbury factory), that is on the same site plus a very reasonably priced coffee and cake... amongst academia! Then we paid a visit (the wife wanted to go) to the British Library... where I also found some astro related items: So first we have an early photo of the moon... very apt I feel, from 1857: Next, a beautifully designed Book of the Moon from 2018 A 1794 letter from Caroline Herschel... I found the last paragraph particularly amusing... where she complains that she hasn't had many clear nights to observe - we hear you Caroline ! And last, A medieval medical text 'A Zodiac Man'... Hope that was enjoyable.... not a bad haul while the wife was browsing! Damian

Yep, same here - both of them on the wife’s old 17” Samsung i3 W7 laptop. I moved to this a few years ago from a Mac OS X environment and looking back, was the best thing I could have done. Platesolving, auto focus, dithering, all work a treat. Suggested a few ideas to the chap who writes the stuff - which he incorporated as well. A few small bugs pop up now and again, which I have learnt to keep an eye out for… but it has never crashed on me mid-session - touch wood! Would highly recommend, although I do think about trying NINA now and again, just to see what that has to offer… Damian

May we see a pre-BlurXT Ollie - the RASA is also under consideration in cloudy Lichfield with a OSC ! Damian

Hi David.... And APP also has the facility to correct for bad column defects: 2) Calibrate > Cosmetic Correction > Hot Column Kappa (set to default 8.0) This sorts my 2x bad columns out automatically (I don't have to tell it which they are, plus I also dither between shots like yourself). Damian

Anyhow, more importantly - good to see you back David ‘Skipper..’ and sorry to hear that your absence was due to illness - hope things are on the mend… Agree with Ollie with regards to mixing stars from two very different pallets… HOO often benefits from the introduction of RGB stars - but that’s just my preference! Much prefer the new version, perhaps a bit too sharpened..? You still have (but less) posterisation - but perhaps that is down to ‘micro’ sharpening…. Clear skies to you… Damian

I wonder Stuart if you had an Atik with a Sony CCD sensor…? Different chip architecture/microlenses….

Hi can confirm it is an ‘artifact’ of the OnSemi Kodak 16200 chip (the big brother of the 8300 chip), as SkipperBilly and myself share the same scope/camera combination… I personally quite like the little ‘diffraction’ spikes! Damian

I saw your post whilst working on another (none astro) Ps job and thought I'd give it a quick whirl before shutting down... Nothing more than 10 mins. Nothing fancy. A few Noel's Actions. No starless processing. Not as refined as Red Chilli's above, but hope it gives you an idea what your data holds if you don't have BlurX and the like. Onwards and upwards, hey! Damian

300DPI for print at the final size (dimensions that you are printing to - even if that means re-sizing up/interpolating in Photoshop. Doesn’t matter if your 300DPI file is bigger than the intended print size to begin with - just take longer to email to the printers). Can get away with 200 or so for things like box-canvas prints, etc as the grain of the canvas hides lower resolution to a point. If you resize upwards and the image starts to pixelate then you have to decide if you are happy with that, or go with a smaller print, or make sure you stand further away from the finished item when viewing! Often folks quote 100DPI or so - this is usually for pull up vinyl banners you see at trade shows, etc. I wouldn’t be looking at that for glass/metal prints. Printing onto that media may require higher resolution… Note that you can get away with some ‘blockiness’ - you should not be pixel peeping a print and should be standing away from it to appreciate - the bigger the artwork the further away you should be standing. I would say that normally adding some glass, especially anti-reflective will hide a bit of upscaling artefacts - but of course you are printing onto metal (so probably no glass in front), so I’d err on the side of caution and keep artwork as sharp as possible, even if that means choosing a smaller picture to hang. You want to stay away from jpeg as well for ‘art prints’ - supply a .tif file (ie saved out directly from your original RAW data and not just re-saving/naming a jpeg as the damage will already have been done), 8 bit is fine - again, check as a courtesy with supplier (jpeg obviously compressing, adding potential artefacts, chance of posterisation, etc) More importantly, see what your printers actually want and see if they prefer the files supplied in a RGB or CMYK colourspace. If you’ve processed your image in RGB (most probably) and they require "four colour process" (CMYK), convert yourself - visually see how the colours change/dull upon converting the artwork from the RGB colourspace (CMYK cannot print all that you see on a RGB monitor) and then adjust that CMYK file back to something close to your original RGB… at least you get a much better idea of what you may get back once printed! Often printed artwork ‘saturates’ and so the final work is darker than expected. It could help to slightly lighten the darker regions - just bring up your black point… a tad! Sometimes it’s safer to provide a full resolution CMYK, composite PDF instead of a .tif file - your supplier may have a preference and if you ask, they may be more interested in helping you achieve what you want. I send printer files out to various publications / printers (although graphics is now not my full time job) and rather than supply a colour profile to each different printer, it is more manageable just to supply with a fairly generic Fogra39 colour profile for print jobs in the UK - your supplier may suggest a more suitable profile for artwork specifically intended to be produced onto metal (or glass) plus the fact that you are Stateside so will probably have a generic US colour profile). Of course this assumes you have a calibrated monitor that you are working on in the first instance… Otherwise it really can be a ‘hope for the best’, you may be pleasantly surprised at the outcome (it may just match what you are viewing on screen), or not! Can you supply them a file and ask them to forward a proof..? This will give you a good idea of how dark the print may be (and perhaps just how much 'out' your screen may be - hence my earlier comment of lightening a tad…. Hope it goes well anyway, colour calibration and printing are rather like imaging - something akin to a dark art ! Damian

Could you add the exposure times and total imaging time spent on this at some stage…?

Very nice. Sharp, nicely framed, processed, plenty of detail to enjoy, like the colours as well ! A reasoned argument for your rendition. And why not - one of the advantages of NB data - you can try all sorts of interesting things to bring something different to the table… Will have to try this technique with my own data (have also started this region as well, but with other targets requiring exposure time to finish them, it’ll be next year before this data set is complete!) Personally, if I was “printing this” - I’d go with the second (stars) image. Whilst I get the reasoning for reducing the starfield to enhance nebulosity, to my eyes, stars add their own structure to the composition… either with stars or without. Nature’s large, striking, powerful nuclear reactors reduced down to something akin to odd bits of dust, plus the countess smaller others removed to the point of looking like underlying ‘noise’ just (to my brain anyway) make the image look oddly fake - I can get that sort of ‘space image’ from the Deviantart website… https://www.deviantart.com/search?q=Space Damian

Down at the family static caravan in Amroth, South Wales (at the start - or end, of the Pembrokeshire Coastal Footpath). Blessed with a few clear nights so far despite mixed daytime weather - well, it IS Wales ! This year it’s been about bringing down the new bass lure fishing gear rather than a scope and sundries (can’t fit everything into the car and I know when not to push the wife too far!) - so only have the Vixen 2.1x42mm ‘binos’ if you can call them that, for scanning the Milky Way - which has been glorious this year... stretching all the way from the Teapot, through Aquila, Cygnus overhead and through to the Double Cluster…. Seen a few meteors and managed M33 through them as well - a good catch… Came back from a night’s fish around 2am to observe and took in the Pleiades and surrounding area as well - Autumn is definitely on the way and there is certainly that ‘September Chill’ in the air my old mum talks about when she’s here. Been nice to not have the proper astro gear - to just relax and take the in whole spectacle… brings home the difference of bortle 3 skies here compared to the depressing 6 that is now Lichfield (home)… Out for an evening stroll with the wife and came up with a mad idea, so off we went down onto the beach! Something quite magical about the moon and the sea…. So astro has been quite successful despite the lack of major equipment - I’ve managed a few night time ‘birds’, and a ‘dolphin’, but no fish… although I did catch a ruddy daytime seagull that decided my top / floating lure looked like the real thing in distress and decided to go for it ! Thankfully I was able to reel it in and unhook the thing without injury (to it or me), if only the Bass were as dumb! Taken with an old iPhone X Clear skies, Damian

😀 👍 🥇 All that needs to be said ! Damian

A damn fine set of images - great contrast and tonal range… Another solar imager to add to my reference list! Damian

Credit to Kostas on here who put me onto it - quicker than Parallels as I’ve tried AS!3 on both, plus it takes up less hard drive space….

A super capture 👍 Saw that (well the lower half) on the GONG image and thought that’d be a good target - if only it wasn’t a work day…. Lucky you! Damian

Fantastic weather over the weekend and on Saturday the wife was away! More than 60 sets of data to go through, process, access, develop - will keep me busy for some time! Basler '174' > Quark Chromo > TEC140 > Baader D-ERF SSM to monitor the seeing, guided with a Hinode unit. The TEC140 at full aperture - f/7, with the Quark's 4.3x internal telecentric, that presents about f/30 at the etalon Captured in Basler's own Pylon software on Mac. Tried out some new settings for capture - all at RAW Mono8, reduced the gain to around 21,000-23,000 (dB), Black Level (offset) 10 (DN) and settled at 6ms for exposure to keep the full 165fps. Gamma @ 1 (so off) Now, thanks to CrossOver software, running the latest AS!3 / ImPPG. Then into Photoshop - all on OSX. From today then, to kick off - a two frame vertical mosaic (it actually stitched together!) AR 3314 / 3311 / 3314 Mono8 / 165 fps / 6ms / 300 frames from 3300 (20 second exposure) - taken around 8.40am BST GONG image for ref (so we're looking upper left for the above image) Damian

Another super set of data Ewan. We had clear skies later on Sunday, but we’re down the road having a street party and the wife gave me that look to say ‘don’t even think about heading off to image’ - I value my life too much to disagree! Thanks also for the details of acquisition 👍 Damian

Thanks for this info Kon… Over the Coronation Bank Holiday, I’ve had plenty of chance to evaluate Parallels running AS!3 (and the new ImPPG) and it has been much quicker than the old way - AS!2 wrapped in WINE. No crashes and a lot quicker despite having to run Windows 11 as well as OSX. My MacBook Pro, whilst top spec in late 2016 isn’t anything like the latest M1 / 2 powered machines, so I was interested in your post! I how have AS!3 and ImPPG wrapped in the trial version of the Crossover wrapper and tested to check all working OK. Tonight hope to put some data through them to see if there is the expected speed uplift (with my older machine not having the overhead of running W11)…. Crossover is also cheaper than Parallels and of course takes up less space on the HD ! Fingers crossed - thanks again! Damian

Started out (many moons ago) with MicroProjects’ Equinox Image and Pro (acquisition and planetarium) software using SBIG on Mac - even did some beta testing on the imaging side of things. When I changed camera and moved to a Windows PC, I went with CCDCiel and CdC. Considering I’d never used a Windows based laptop before, it works superbly and I’ve had no issues; accurate ASTAP integrated blind and plate solving, simple / accurate auto focusing and integration with Phd2. I contacted the owner, Patrick Chevalle (via the GitHub development portal) to see if he would add some features I’d lost with the change of control software and he implemented…. then I asked if we could better use the long 18 second Atik 16200 image download time, to action the dither command and settle time so that the next image capture could be actioned as quickly as possible…. and he sorted that as well. Couldn’t ask for more. Now trust enough to be able to watch over from the house - via TeamViewer. Damian

Had chance today to revisit some data.... also installed the trial of Parallels / Windows 11 onto my MacBook Pro to test out AS!3 and the latest ImPPG Following is the next data set after the above capture using the newer software... and I think it has done a better job Difficult to compare (will be going back to the first data to do a back to back test of AS!2/3) and of course I don't have what I did in Photoshop recorded, but I do like what I'm seeing... Need to check the speed of processing to decide if I want to spend £89 on the full Parallels.... or a few grand on a decent Windows i9 gaming laptop! Taken at 3.50pm BST - 9 mins later than the first... Basler '174' > Quark Chromo > TEC140 > Baader D-ERF 300 frames from 3000, Mono 12p, 110fps Hopefully have eliminated (or much reduced) the internal reflection that blights this - will see next time out! Damian

After help from the folks over on SolarChat! and Ewan here 👍 I've started to make a few changes and as luck would have it, managed to test things out in a very small window earlier today... Not ideal conditions (passing cloud and imaging directly over the neighbour's roof), but grabbed two data sets before said roof obscured the view. Think I've got rid of most of the newton rings without having to spend more money on a tilter and think I've narrowed down where my internal reflection is coming from - doesn't show itself on full disc images.... also changed some of the capture settings as I wasn't happy with my past Mono8 recordings.... a new baseline for next time out! Basler '174' > Quark Chromo > TEC140 > Baader D-ERF The TEC140 at the full 140mm f/7 and with the Quark's 4.3x internal telecentric, that presents about f/30 at the etalon Captured in Basler's own Pylon software on Mac. Then AS!2 / ImPPG (under WINE). Then into Photoshop. AR 5285 / 5288 Mono8 / 165 fps / 6000ms / 300 frames from 3000 - taken at 5.17 BST And the GONG image for ref around the same time:

Thanks for the details Ewan... 👍 If I may, I'll pm you at some stage to get some more pointers... But it's time for bed now... I'll be bookmarking this thread though as a future reference point! Regards, Damian

Phenomenal imaging Ewan - wish I could get to that level ! 👍 I'll have to pick your brains at some stage... Are you an AS! / ImPPG processor or using that AstroSurface(?) software... Super going anyway - something to aspire to 😀 Clear skies... Damian

Thank you - pretty lucky as I only had a short window to try!