AKB

21 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

if you don't provide them with that information

Exactly.  So you should use that information. 

1 hour ago, vlaiv said:

no wonder you get the same result

Yes, of course, but the point is you can do this post-stack, so you don’t have to reprocess the subs you did previously.

20 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

In the end - you average two (10 + 9) / 2 = 9.5

However, if you do it properly and weight them according to the number of subs in each stack you get the ‘right’ answer

((3 * 10) + (2 * 9)) / (2 + 3) = 9.6

43 minutes ago, PatG said:

By coincidence I captured NCG2403 this evening.

Pat, that looks good, welcome back to EAA/EEVA.  Can you say something about the gear you’re using, both hardware and software?

I wouldn’t intrinsically worry about the ‘seagulls’ – it’s a sort of free ‘dither’!  What you need is some kind of median or percentile stacking, rather than a straight mean.  Flats would help with the background too, if it’s not too much faff.  Depends on your capture software of course.  It’s a long time since I’ve used SLL, and now rely on Martin’s very own Jocular package. 
 

Let’s hope for some upcoming opportunities to share more of these observations. 
 

Tony

Last night was wonderfully clear, but I was busy, so no time for a proper EEVA session, nevertheless a chance to keep the rig running and spend a few hours on one target.  I did find just ten minutes during that time to capture some short frames on the EEVA scope too, so here's a comparison:

• 24 x 5m (2 hours total) Esprit 120ED, ASI294MC OSC cooled to -10ºC, IDAS P2 filter, post-processed in PI
• 18 x 30s (9 m total) 9.25 Hyperstar, Ultrastar uncooled mono, captures and processed in real time with Jocular

NGC 2903 is a magnificent barred spiral galaxy in Leo, about 30 Mly distant.  Also caught here on camera in both shots (albeit faintly, about the spiral galaxy's width above the centre of it) is UGC 5806, a diffuse galaxy, magnitude 15.6, and apparently 24 Mly away.

Another example of why EEVA is a very worthwhile activity, with, I think, a very favourable comparison between the shots in terms of detail.  In fact, the bar seems clearer on the mono image... perhaps because it shines brightly in the infra-red.

I've finally sorted out my dual mount to point both scopes in the same direction, so that's an improvement!

Tony

A modest aperture mask is used to improve the tendency to bloat stars with the Hyperstar.  Marginally reducing the aperture slightly changes the effective diameter and therefore changes the focal ratio – in this case from f2.3 to f2.5.  Along with a curved former for the camera leads to remove diffraction spikes, this seems to give the Hyperstar a very acceptable performance in terms of star shape.  Certainly works for me in the EEVA application.  I think it looks pretty good for such a fast system.

Tony

Just for the record, I got the flats sorted out...

MUCH better!

This recent post in the imaging section...

...prompted me to go look for myself.

Last night (Feb 22) didn't give me the clarity that I was hoping for, but along with trying some long-exposure imaging, I spared five minutes on this.  (I had meant to time this for 22:22:22, but forgot that that was the plan!)

NGC 2403 (Caldwell 7) has some impressive star-forming regions (à la M33.)  The supernova SN 2004dj has been nearest and brightest supernova in 21st century.  

According to Wiki: "The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel in 1788. Edwin Hubble detected Cepheid variables in NGC 2403 using the Hale telescope, making it the first galaxy beyond the Local Group within which a Cepheid was discovered."

Sadly, my image is not as impressive as either the image, or the statistics, above.  But it was the first night out for a while...

I trawled the EEVA reports and AFAIK it's been a while since this was featured:

• Dec 2015 – https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/258284-some-nice-galaxies-from-last-night/#comment-2825103
• Jan 2016 – https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/261982-gravitationally-lensed-twin-quasar/#comment-2868812

Tony

Last night, Feb 22, between about 9.00 and 10.00 PM.  The transparency and seeing wasn't as good as I had hoped for, but at least there was no moon.

I have my EEVA scope (f2.5, 9" Hyperstar) and my imaging scope (f7, Esprit 120ED) on the same mount and I thought it might be nice to compare short and rather longer exposures on these two.  Clearly, though, I haven't got them aligned quite right! 

Nonetheless, a creditable effort from the uncooled Ultrastar in 10 minutes, compared to 6 times that from the ASI294MC, and an endorsement for EEVA.  The colour image was, of course, subsequently processed a fair amount in PI.  The mono one, though, was collected in real-time using the excellent Jocular sofware by  @Martin Meredith.  This, I suppose, is the difference between f2.5 mono and f7 OSC.

I do need to take new flats for both.  Sorry about the image rotation.

Tony.

Greetings!

Try this memorable and extensive thread to see what is possible…

Looking forward to seeing and hearing your experience with your planned setup.

Tony

A very quick attempt shows this.

FITS headers say you're using C8 Edge and Atik 414 with 6.45 micron pixels.  21 x 5 minutes frames.

Would expect the focus to be better?

Tony.

…always 30 years away.  😉

17 hours ago, Xio1996 said:

My thought is to buy the mono version of the chip inside my 294c (ASI294MM ?)

I’m toying with the same thought.  I use the colour 294 MC for serious imaging (if I may call it that) and currently a mono Ultrastar for EEVA, with decent results, but wondering if the mono 294 would be better with lower noise and higher sensitivity (and slightly smaller pixels.). Judging from  the OP, testing this idea with the MC version, won’t help. 

Ah yes, quite so...

 7Feb22 10:31:12.261 | ERROR    | jocular.cameras.asicamera | connect                    |   91 | problem initialising ASI (dlopen(/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/jocular/resources/mac/libASICamera2.dylib.1.21, 6): Library not loaded: @loader_path/libusb-1.0.0.dylib

However, I had previously followed instructions to build libusb.  But i've just redone them:

(base) LFB-iMac:jocular lfb$ brew install libusb
Running `brew update --preinstall`...
==> Auto-updated Homebrew!
Updated 2 taps (homebrew/core and homebrew/cask).
==> New Formulae
asyncapi                   esphome                    inotify-tools              rure                       tfschema
canfigger                  ffmpeg@4                   linode-cli                 terminalimageviewer        usbutils
==> Updated Formulae
Updated 440 formulae.
==> New Casks
arctype               imagex                inkstitch             nozbe-personal        polypane              trex
==> Updated Casks
Updated 327 casks.
==> Deleted Casks
jsui                       liya                       nozbe                      powerword                  telavox-flow

libusb 1.0.24 is already installed but outdated (so it will be upgraded).
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/libusb/manifests/1.0.25
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/libusb/blobs/sha256:742a3d523988790f967df5c944b802a8d8f536a99fab123e823acbd6b1ce4fde
==> Downloading from https://pkg-containers.githubusercontent.com/ghcr1/blobs/sha256:742a3d523988790f967df5c944b802a8d8f536a99fab123e
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Upgrading libusb
  1.0.24 -> 1.0.25 

==> Pouring libusb--1.0.25.big_sur.bottle.tar.gz
🍺  /usr/local/Cellar/libusb/1.0.25: 22 files, 525.8KB
==> Running `brew cleanup libusb`...
Disable this behaviour by setting HOMEBREW_NO_INSTALL_CLEANUP.
Hide these hints with HOMEBREW_NO_ENV_HINTS (see `man brew`).
Removing: /usr/local/Cellar/libusb/1.0.24... (22 files, 516.7KB)
Removing: /Users/lfb/Library/Caches/Homebrew/libusb--1.0.24... (159.7KB)
(base) LFB-iMac:jocular lfb$ 

and still see this in the log...

OSError: dlopen(/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/jocular/resources/mac/libASICamera2.dylib.1.21, 6): Library not loaded: @loader_path/libusb-1.0.0.dylib
  Referenced from: /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/jocular/resources/mac/libASICamera2.dylib.1.21
  Reason: image not found
 7Feb22 10:38:18.129 | DEBUG    | jocular.objectio          | check_save                 |  146 | 
 7Feb22 10:38:18.129 | INFO     | jocular.jocular           | on_stop                    |  165 | normal close down
 7Feb22 10:38:18.130 | DEBUG    | jocular.component         | close                      |   81 | closedown
 7Feb22 10:38:18.130 | ERROR    | kivy.app                  | stop                       |  971 | An error has been caught in function 'stop', process 'MainProcess' (3598), thread 'MainThread' (4618382848):

Do I have to close the shell and log in again?

Reflections of Alnitak, then, …?

Do they move if you change the FOV?

Dust bunnies?  Flats should sort this out.

Tony

I'm having trouble trying to connect to an ASI 120 on my Mac.  I installed oaCapture, and that works just fine.  But in Jocular, when selecting equip > Camera > ASI and clicking connect... I get the error cannot initialise camera.

Any advice on how to diagnose?

Otherwise, the latest version is working well for me!

Tony

23 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

You are not alone in being wary of meridian flips but I never understand why.

I put it down to having lived very happily with a superb mount which didn’t need a meridian flip (Avalon M-Uno.)  The only reason I got a Mesu was to take the extra load of multiple OTAs including a refractor which was too long for the Uno, which I still love.  APT is also new to me, and having got auto-focus in hand, meridian flip is the next challenge.  I’ll get there in the end, but I do think that nearly 100kg of kit swinging around is something of which to be at least a little wary.

A rare clear night (4-Feb-2022) and an occasional departure from my usual EEVA activities.

Only 29 x 5 mins (2 h 25m total) here, from early evening to meridian flip, which I bottled.  Advice on APT (and Mesu) welcomed in this regard.

The guiding was excellent ~0.4" RMS, which is nice since I've just switched from 230mm to 430mm on the guide scope, and it seems to make a modest improvement... but who knows given the state of the UK skies?

• Esprit  120 ED
• ASI 294MC Pro (OSC)
• 29 x 5 min with IDAS P2 filter
• Mesu e200

I'd have gone for at least twice the time if the flip worked.  AFAIK it was clear all night.  Still, something is better than nothing.

Tony.

Yes, I checked that.  Here's what's there...

Definite improvement!  Now I am able to load and save bias by dropping in the watched folder...

...BUT

the processed image doean't use the flats...

2 hours ago, Martin Meredith said:

I hope the watched functionality is still all OK

I used this command to upgrade...

 pip install --upgrade jocular==0.5.3

...not sure is that's correct?  Actually, I struggled to find the syntax to do this, it's not available on the help text?

Initial findings are:

• Flats don't seem to work – at least, what worked yesterday (which was new flats applying to previous day's lights) doesn't make any difference – calibrator says "none suitable"
• Nothing in the config about age of flats to allow?
• Ring dimming controls gone??
• I was slightly thrown by the lack of a CLOSE button on the configuration, but moving the cursor out of the ring does the trick
• imstats: would it be possible to add image size in pixels?  I find this useful when dealing with different cameras

I've been working on a computationally simple, but effective, post-stack-and-stretch, noise reduction method, with very forgiving parameters.  I'd like to test this on any images you might think are appropriate.   I wonder if there's any chance of a discussion on this?

Thanks for all your hard work.  Life (or, at least, observing sessions) just wouldn't be the same without Jocular.

Tony

PS: LOVE the pop-up message on saving an image.  Real confirmation that something has actually happened!

Martin

Great to hear this!  Re. Flats, they’re rather important for my Hyperstar.  In fact, I just took some new T-shirt flats during dusk today, and both dust bunnies and vignetting are dealt with really well.  This, of course, is using the watched folder for both flats, darks, and lights, so I’m hoping this is all OK.

My experiments with OSC and binning are currently on hold, and I suspect this will be affected by your planned changes. I use both Mac and Ultrastar, but PC for the capture on the scope.  However, when I swap out the camera from scope I’ll give the native Mac capture a go.

Onwards and upwards for Jocular!

Tony

I wouldn’t call that “without success” !

These are nice pictures.  If we're looking at what you were look at whilst (or, rather, by the end of) imaging, then this is EAA / EEVA in my book!

Nice wide FOV.  Good to see the 'Running Man' clearly in the Orion image too.

Welcome to this addictive technique.

Tony