AKB

Is today’s APOD yours...? https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap201007.html congrats if so (or even if not!)

Really dramatic! That's a lot of data in a short time. Like it! Tony

Good luck with the retrofit outcome... would success mean that you have a spare moonlight focuser going? Tony

...how does that cope with dew? I know my telescope doesn’t (after a point.) Tony ____________ PS: I did see this on the product overview: ____________ PPS: Actually, I liked this so much, I bought the company one!

Not my usual subject, but it was early in the evening and she was looking lovely... ...and it was the first thing I could see to point at and (try to) focus on. Celestron C9.25" SCT XLT with x0.63 reducer ASI294MC OSC (but this is luminance only) 80 frames of 3ms. Tony

Well, I decided to tweak the setup a bit more and try it out on something a bit more interesting, so here's NGC 185 (C18), 10 x 2min, cropped. Perhaps not what you'd call EAA, though (too long an exposure?)

Hi Martin Thanks for the comments. I'll hit the AP crowd later, but getting things right for EAA is what I'm after. Single frames have the same issue. Speaking of which, any updates to Jocular? I'm actually out in the observatory right now...looking at M3... anything spring to mind for this FOV? Thanks Tony

It's been so... long... since I've done anything here. But with a nice few evenings recently, I thought I'd get going again and try a new configuration for EEVA (old hardware, I've just not used it this way before): Celectron 9.25" SCT XLT Celestron x0.63 reducer/flattener ASI-294MC OSC IDAP-P2 filter in Baader filter slider This should give me about 0.74° FOV and 0.6" per pixel – way over sampled, but good to bin x2. However, I've wasted days trying to get this working without ghastly abberations. I thought it was ... collimation, so that's been done again and again dirt on the corrector plate wrong back focus from the reducer (may still be) camera tilt something dreadfully wrong with the primary mirror alignment... ....but in desperation (late) last night, I pulled out the filter, and lo and behold things seems to get a lot better. So I took I a few shots of a rich starfield in Cygnus, to run in CCD Inspector (yet to be done) and a few of M13 – 15 x 1 minute (happy to get a bonus galaxy, but didn't try to process for this) Albireo – 10 x 10 seconds If there's anyone out the who feels qualified to comment on whether I should expect better result from this configuration, I'd be very grateful. I'm just not sure what to expect in terms of star quality. These are binned x2 images, after a bit of stetching (darks but no flats). Thanks Tony

Reminds me of a professor at university who asked us if 1% accuracy was good. He pointed out that if he only managed that on his journey home, he wouldn’t get to his front door...

Hi Gina Looks like you’re having fun with your weather sensors and MQTT. The display looks clean and fresh... much less cluttered than my own system... Different technology, though. This uses a mixture of ZWave and Ethernet-based sensors communicating to a home-brew controller (written in Lua) and using UDP to send data to a local Graphite database, then displayed by the Grafana tool. Anyhow, all this doesn’t improve the actual observing conditions... 🌧️ ☹️ Tony

The working language of the forum is only English... but Mr Google thinks you said:

Yes, I thought that your previous efforts could do with improvement... 😉🤥 No, seriously, these are fantastic. Anything in particular in terms of 'improved techniques'?? Tony

I was absolutely desperate to get out a few nights ago (March 25th): clear, not windy, not too cold, new moon. Can't remember the last time it's been like that. I haven't been in the observatory for a while so just went with what I had set up. Esprit 120ED Pro ASI294MC OSC, with 'quad band' filter Hadn't planned anything, but was facing west when I aligned on a star, so just went for the Rosette nebula. Perhaps a bit late in the season for that, and I had been meaning to switch the rig over to galaxy imaging mode, but hadn't. So I went for something big and bright. Too big, as it turns out for the FOV! Started around 8:00pm and ran until 10:30pm. 31 x 5 minute frames. Paused a couple of times to refocus. This is probably the longest total imaging time on one target I've ever done. I've had a couple of stabs at processing, but really the object of the exercise was to get out there, use the gear, and have fun. Amazingly, everything worked immensely smoothly, although guiding was only around 1 arcsec RMS. Here it is. A more RGB-like filter would have been better, so this is, essentially, a bi-colour image. Comments welcomed. Thanks, Tony.

Just to record an answer to my question, here is one from another thread... Kudos to @f300v10 Tony

...with a keyboard command from within Stellarium?? If, how, please? Tony

Yes and no. Unless I am mistaken, this is a problem...

Just for the record, here's a stack of 50% (102) images. Think it's better, although the tones look slightly posterized?? Tony

Absolutely cracking shots! How do you focus? Are there single shots, or stacks? Tony

I don't usually image the moon, but there she was looking lovely in a bright blue sky. I haven't been in the observatory for ages (weather, mostly), but rushed out, cracked open the roof and shot 200 x 3ms captures: Esprit 120 ED ASI 294 MC Pro (OSC) Here's just one of them (mono). Further processing may take a while! Tony

The Esprit FL of 840mm is not especially long. OAGs are good for anything with moveable optics... SCTs and reflectors... so it can track with any shifts in FOV.

No, why would you that? 😀 I use a guide scope, sometime on the opposite head (it’s a dual mount) or clamped directly to the Esprit. Yes, absolutely. Most directions not a problem at all.

I’m not sure I’ve come across anyone using plate-solving for EEVA, but I might be wrong. It seems to me that EEVA is more observing-like than imaging-like, so some manual navigation is not unnatural. I certainly use go-to mounts, usually in combination with software like Stellarium, so just use whatever you need to get near enough (within FOV, for example) and then manually browse around. I do sometimes use guiding if my exposures are more than 15 seconds, or so, but mostly so that I can dither to improve the noise with live stacking. It’s so quick to do that it doesn’t really get in the way of spontaneous enjoyment of the view. However, there’s really no right or wrong, just what’s easy for you Tony

I have both an Esprit 120, and an Avalon M-Uno. Both are fabulous. However, in combination, you lose the massive advantage of the mount, that of no meridian flip, since the scope is so long (even with a pillar extension on the head.) Of course, that’s not a fault of either device, and you’ll have the same problem with any refractor. Tony

Works wonderfully well! With the monitor at just over arm's length, I see a 'miniature' stereo image floating about 10cm in front of my face. No strain at all, once you're there. Actually rather hard to get rid of and focus once again on the actual page after a while!

That's most gratifying! Great piece of kit. I must confess that I'm deeply interested in how you achieve such enormous SNRs for your guide star. In yourGuiding Assistant image I see 161, and on the PHD screen 289? Typically, I see 30 - 40, and this with a dedicated guide scope with ED glass, and Bortle 4 skies. Can you explain this? I can't help but think that if I achieve a better SNR, then guiding will be better too (I have a very good mount, although not Mesu!) Thanks Tony