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pipnina

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Everything posted by pipnina

  1. pipnina
    I was worried it might be a bit blurry once stacked since many of the subframes showed stretched or wonky stars, but it seems to have faired quite well and I think it might be the best astrograph I've taken so far! Look at those reds! worth breaking my camera's aperture control arm for I think : D Looking forward to shooting my next target! M78, or Horsehead and flame, or maybe california? Taken with Nikon D3200 (full-spectrum mod), Skywatcher 130PDS, HEQ5-PRO
  2. pipnina
    I do polar alignment in a lightly naughty way: I let the mount tell me what hour angle it's meant to be, and roughly get it to that hour angle in the guide inside the mount's optic, but it is on the edge of that circle and pretty close I'd guess, even though they designed a system where that optic is pretty much impossible to get to the right position... As for if the mount is level... Hmm. I hadn't considered such matters! I didn't even check the sight glass on the mount. I will have to see what it looks like in the morning, since I just took the camera off and came indoors leaving the mount in the garden. Here are some close-ups from the camera, about an hour apart and in center frame,
  3. pipnina
    Hi! I set up my HEQ5 synscan and it seems to be maintaining tracking quite well, since I have had my camera shooting for hours now and orion is still in the same spot (save me going out to nudge it on RA/DEC via the handset to pseudo-dither), but every picture shows stars that look considerably bloated or even stretched out! I will attach images here shortly (once I've retrieved the SD card when the battery in the camera dies in the next hour or so) which might help you guys help me work out what's wrong. I tried my best to make sure RA/DEC are balanced, double checked the clutches are tight, the air in my garden is quite still. I did the two-star alignment and it's only set to sidereal rate and not sidereal+PEC. I seem to have rather random luck as to whether the mount will produce sharp images with good tracking or perform horrendously like this! It's on grass but I always give it a good wiggle and press into the dirt before I start polar and 2-star alignment. I have even checked for dewing (and de-spidered it, that guy worked fast!) and re-focused it a few times. It looks quite sharp in the camera live screen but any 2 minute shot I take comes out looking just as bad! Any tips for making my setup more consistently performant? Any ideas what might be causing this issue with the mount because everything I can think of that I can control comes up fine : ( Any ideas appreciated!
  4. pipnina

    Just finished the surgery on my Nikon D3200! No more pesky IR filter removing all my Ha! Can't wait for the next clear sky! It all seems to work fine and the images around the house are quite orange haha. Anything I need to be aware of when it comes to IR-modded DSLRs? I didn't have a replacement filter to put in so I'm a bit worried about dust and if it will now accept TOO much IR?

    1. timwetherell

      timwetherell

      Just exploring the same thing myself with a Sony A7s, though had mine done by someone else. Don't think too much IR will be an issue. I'm quite keen to see what various galaxies look like in near IR. Probably sharper due to less seeing effects out at that wavelength?

      According to the charts I've seen for the Sony, the IR filter cuts about 80% of H alpha so hopefully will be a lot better with it out :)

       

    2. pipnina

      pipnina

      Indeed mine was a massive success!

      Hope you get similar uplift in results! I think you can tell which one was taken with vs without haha876010149_ORIONNEBULA-1.thumb.jpg.012d3cf22802367d62226420b3a6c50f.jpg

       

      M42-2022-02-22-1.jpg

  5. pipnina
    Someone has to be! 😜
  6. pipnina
    Basically just used a phone holder I got from lidl, intended for vloggers or tik-tokers, but very good for attaching my phone to a tripod and streaming my model painting to my friends both! Stuck my Pixel6 on the tripod, waited for a pesky singular large cloud to drift by, and got the full 4 mins worth. It even has a little smudge of the flame nebula! My eyes can barely see that through my 10" dob in a slightly darker site! My PHONE caught it basically unaided! Magical brief return to the hobby after not being able to touch it for the last year or more. It's reinvigorated my desire to spend £££(£?) on kit I'll use twice a year haha. -James
  7. pipnina
    Stunning! Kinda wish I'd gotten the pro, but the regular 6 is already on the limit of how big of a phone i can handle. Just wish they did the pixel 6 with the telephoto lens without the extra size etc.
  8. pipnina

    Hard to stay illusioned with this hobby of late.

    I look at the pictures I took now a minimum of a year in the past, and occasionally glimpse a star past some clouds. I then look at my dusty equipment and wonder if this hobby is even still viable for me. I could swear weather in the GMT+0 months has gotten progressively worse since I took up this hobby in 2014 and paired with work I feel this hobby somewhat unsustainable. I wish things were different.

    1. Luke

      Luke

      There was a period where I got a bit frustrated. I normally feel better once I've got a session in. The other thing that helps me is that I think about how old some of my gear is - ten years or more, some of it - and what good condition it's still in. I reckon I've already had my money's worth out of it, for the amazing views they've given me. I haven't bought anything astro for years now, though it would be lovely to put an order in with FLO if funds allowed. Good luck, I hope you get some opportunities soon.

    2. xtreemchaos

      xtreemchaos

      yea darn weather eh, and when we get a bit of clear its hard to get a frame without one of elons satilites in shot. these things are there to test us for sure. one things for sure it can only get better i hope.

    3. bingevader

      bingevader

      Hang on in their!

      I've had quite sizeable 'breaks' in the past due to work, family, weather.

      At the moment, I'm in bed too early to do any meaningful stargazing.

      However, the stars aren't going anywhere and neither will your kit if you keep hold of it! :D 

  9. pipnina
    Is it possible to get products that perform a similar job to laser pointers? Maybe narrow-beamed and very bright torches? Wouldn't be a perfect solution and might be dependent on RH% but there might be torches bright enough to do it?
  10. pipnina
    I'm more than a little surprised a post I made five years ago has been referenced this week! Even I forgot I even made that one! Thanks for the memory trip and for the beautiful astrograph!
  11. pipnina
    Hmm. I did notice a little bit of softening at the furthest edges of my Nikon, but I presumed my coma corrector was not quite perfectly positioned. How have you gotten on with your ASI1600? I would be interested in imaging places like the flame nebula so I am very concerned by the reports of microlensing effects, have you noticed them prolifically in the images you've taken?
  12. pipnina
    I have been on the fence about diving into a proper astrocam for months now. I am at the limits of what is possible with my Nikon D3200. The prospect of the ASI 1600mm PRO and Atik Horizon's ability to do video and long exposure (i.e. multi-purpose planet and DSO imagers??) and their relatively good price point for the resolution and sensor size, is attractive, but I hear about micro-lensing and amp glow from these CMOS sensors, and possibly reports of unusual colour balance compared to the CCDs, and I start to wonder if I can justify spending £1500 on a camera which still has many flaws. My biggest struggle is that my telescope (130-PDS) has an image circle big enough for an APS-C sensor, even these CMOS cameras are a big shrink compared to my nikon and cameras cheaper than these seem to become nano sized! Besides making all my images much narrower it seems a waste of good light to not have either a larger sensor (£££) or to use a reducer (if available?) So between the more expensive CMOS sensors which are out of my budget, and the micro-sized sensors which are at a good price point but abysmally small in resolution and FOV, are these imperfect but flexible machines: The 1600mm and Horizon. Am I missing a product which would be more sensible here? I feel like if I buy a camera it should be a good one because they are all big money, but I also don't want to overspend since ideally I am saving money (we all know what astro gear does to savings...) Thanks for any input!
  13. pipnina
    My nikon isn't modded at all, and I have gotten this effect with refracting optics too. I have done some imaging with normal camera lenses in the past which showed this. I cannot however say what causes it.
  14. pipnina
    Hmm. I'm not sure a filter will help you since the light looks very white which would make filters useless (the whole spectrum is polluted). Because of the location of the lamp, would it be possible to connect a large sheet (like a water-proof blanket used for covering lawn furniture) to the house and fence to shade the scope?
  15. pipnina
    I think my flats were probably wrong somehow. I never seem to get them right but I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I don't get this pattern when I use no calibration frames.
  16. pipnina
    Nice report and I'm glad you got yo make use of the recent clear spell! That second photo makes me think of the year 1968 for some reason...
  17. pipnina
    Hello and welcome! It's best to convert finished images to jpeg or png so that it can be viewed more easily.
  18. pipnina
    I posted the result of my 4 hour data the other day, but as the conditions were good last night I figured returning to the same subject wouldn't hurt. Still got some issues in processing. Flats look like they're overcompensating though I kept the histogram within the recommended range and they appear to correct properly when used on a single raw image in rawtherapee. I'm pretty happy with this over all however.
  19. pipnina
    An excellent explanation! Kappa-sigma always gave me better results than the more plain methods in DSS, but I never knew what the settings were for. Thanks for taking the time to write that!
  20. pipnina
    So if I get this right, kappa=1 would throw away all but the most consistent 33% of pixel values? While kappa=3 would only throw away 0.27%? And if that's by 5 iterations, it throws away 0.27% five times? Does this mean, for purely hot pixel removal, it's best to use kappa=3 and iterations 2-5? Does low kappa severely limit benefits of stacking for "going deep" into images or preventing faint details from emerging?
  21. pipnina
    The good weather continues and so I recharged my camera's batteries and set sights for M81 and M82 last night. I hoped to get in the order of 6 or more hours of images from it but at some point the 130-PDS impacted the tripod leg and it lost tracking, then the camera battery ran out, so I got just over 4 hours in the end. I'm relatively happy with the result though, looks relatively clean and free of my camera's usual defects (I shifted the mount by a minute or so after 2 hours). I should probably look into investing in pixInsight to get pictures like this in a better state since I think editing is my big bottleneck right now, next to my camera being unsuitable (hence no red plumes coming from M82 ) I used Aldebaran, and Procyon to test my focus and tracking, not the greatest images but nice star fields anyway, or so I think... And of course a single 30-second exposure of M42, because it's impossible not to while it's still here! I hope you guys had similar luck last night with the sky! And perhaps better luck than I with equipment 😛
  22. pipnina
    Excellent! Thanks! I don't know what happened to my manual since the kitchen redo in January moved just about everything else in the house too ha. Thanks again and hope you're all well.
  23. pipnina
    It's very convenient that the handset can slew to catalogued targets automatically, but for a lot of pictures I'm trying to frame two objects at once. Is it possible to dial in a specific set of RA/DEC coordinates straight into the SynScan handset so I can reach the same location repeatably? I know people do it with the computers but I can't plug mine in (no adaptor)... I can't find anything in the menus of my HEQ5-PRO to do this with... Help!
  24. pipnina
    Had a few technical issues with the mount but I got it to a mostly satisfactory condition after an hour or two. Unfortunately i forgot to charge my double battery holder in my nikon so it only lasted about two hours into the imaging session and I had to cut it short Hope the rest of you are getting some luck with the sky at the moment. Summer fast approaches and I for one hope to make the most of galaxy season
  25. pipnina
    I think I've improved it... I got the "polaris position in scope" and the other stat it gives you after setting date/time/lat/long so I put polaris on the wrong side of the polar scope... Still, I didn't think it would make that big of a difference...
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