melsky

2 hours ago, AstroGS said:

The idea could work for me - i like the concept. 

But, the imaging sensor is where I found myself saying - nah! This is a pass for me. 

A RASA 6" though, would be perfect as a widefield astrograph. Perfect i would dare to say.

The cameras are interchangeable / upgradable so chose your sensor for the target.

This was probably my best one on the night.

https://youtu.be/rFnysKP0B6k

On 05/09/2022 at 05:31, KimG said:

OK , so I have been an astronomer for more than 20 years, seen several comets, all the Messier catalogue bar 1,  A decent number of NGC objects, the space staion lots of times even this morning, starlink chains, iridium flares and meteor showers etc. 

So, at about 5:08 this morning moving at a brisk speed across the southern sky at around 15 or 20 degrees above the horizon was the strangest sight I have ever seen, to the naked eye is was a bight moving cloud about the size of the moon, in my bins there was a very bright sattelite behind the cloud which had lit the cloud with a flare like shape of light, just above the moving cloud was a short chain of lights very close together and equal brightness, several magnitudes fainter than the main bright object (which was brighter than Rigel by a couple of magnitudes) there were other fainter lights slightly above and ahead of the chain. The entire ensemble, cloud and all was moving briskly from west to east and had passed across the sky in less than a couple of minutes. Now if these had been just points of light it would have been striking enough, but to see a huge cloud (as I said, roughly but really a good bit bigger than moon size) moving as well has left me puzzled to the absolute max. I didn't have any meanse of recording it unfortunately, as my description beggars belief I do anticipate a fair amount of sceptisism, but I am not seeking any kind of notoriety or fame, merely reporting what I observed. Later today I will do a sketch based  and post it up, trully, for anyone who knows the night sky well, this was the strangest thing you could ever imagine.

Hi Kim

Here’s a link to the video I shot of the G4-20 StarLink deorbit burn, had to move the camera several times to avoid trees as it was a little lower than I expected it to be.

Please watch in 4K

I think I have the answer for you 😊

Mel

Good review Steve, I've had a Staraid Revolution B for a while now and I'm completely delighted with it. I've always used it with a 130mm guidescope so have had no issues with guiding or polar aligning with it. I can move it from mount to mount and get accurate alignment in about 2-3 minutes just using my iPad, it works fantastically on my AstroTrac 360. 

I generally use it for widefield imaging attached is an example shot with my Atik One 6 and WO Redcat51 mounted on a CEM40, this is a stack of five frames each one being a twenty minute exposure, I think that shows how good it guides.

ISS lunar transit on 22nd March

Taken with a Sony A7sIII and a 135mm lens for the tracking video and a Nikon P1000 for the transit.

On 18/12/2020 at 20:37, Alien 13 said:

Unfortunately that is only true if the polarscope can be rotated and has an hour scale like the SW ones..

Alan

The polarscope is rotatable you can have the RA axis at any position you like to do the  polar alignment.

Undoubtedly the 1999 solar eclipse which I witnessed from northern France but just to be different videoing a spectacular pass of the dragon capsule CRS-18 over the UK back in July 2019. The capsule, second stage and two tumbling solar panel covers rose quickly up travelling across the sky much faster than the ISS. It was amazing watching multiple electric blue thruster firings expand into space as it went overhead applying course corrections, all to soon it faded rapidly as it encountered the earth’s shadow, but it was a fantastic sight.

Mel

I also noticed someone on The CN forum managed to buy one off the shelf. I'm order number 10019 fully paid up 14 months and haven’t heard a peep from Astrotrac, very disappointed in their loyalty in that they are not prioritising those of us that funded the research and development of this mount. The good news is the mount is out there and we should get them soon.

Just seen this thread, I managed to get a nice shot of it as well.

Thanks I’ll check mine when it arrives on Monday 👍

Do you mean like this? I may be selling the bracket that holds the 183c camera soon as I’ve decided to go back to Atik cameras.

Mel

I used to have some very nice Leica ultravid 8x32's which I bought secondhand and used for about five years and sold them for almost what I paid for them. If you can afforded it good preowned optics will hold their value, I made the mistake of looking through some Swarovski 8.5 x 42 Swarovisions and then nothing else would do 😄

Mel

15 hours ago, Stu said:

Just handheld? Steady hands you've got if it was, or were you using a tripod?

I was using a tripod with a video head on it.

1 hour ago, Stu said:

Thanks Mel. What do you use to capture it?

I was using my Sony A7s with a canon 200mm F2.8 lens 1/15 @51,200 iso

37 minutes ago, Stu said:

That's fantastic Mel, you did really well to track that so clearly.

I watched the launch online, but had no idea it was passing over the UK. How do you find that out, just by know that ISS orbit was well placed?

Yes, this is the third time I've managed to capture a Dragon spacecraft with RCS jets firing, we have to have a favourable ISS pass timed with the sun being not too low below the horizon so that the craft is not illuminated and most crucially of all a clear sky, I've missed a few due to bad weather. This is by far the best capture I've managed, several people have mentioned the thruster firings were easily visible in binoculars.

1 hour ago, tooth_dr said:

What time was this visible last night. I may have accidentally seen it!

About 11:25pm

After watching the launch for Cape Canaveral I knew CRS-18 would pass over the UK as the ISS had done an overhead pass only 30 minutes earlier, the only doubt was if the cloud cleared and it would be high enough to be illuminated by sunlight. Well it was spectacular, the RCS thrusters we’re pushing out circular plumes of glowing blue gas as the course corrections fired as the Dragon capsule, second stage and the two tumbling side shrouds passed over. If you look very carefully there are two or three pinpoints of light behind and to the left, any ideas as to what these might be? All to quickly it moved into the earths shadow and faded from view but ai was still able to track it for a short while.

Mel

I've had no problems using one with my William Optics FLT110.

OK as requested here is a TIFF version from the raw file of a full frame shot through my Redcat 51, taken with a SonyA7s @1600iso 15 seconds exposure. Yes its not perfect but I think its more than acceptable for the price of the lens, I've overlaid crops for smaller camera's, the red line is APS-C, the yellow line Micro 4/3 and the green line for my Atik One 6.0 which is what the lens will primarily be used for.

Redcat Tiff.tif

On 13/06/2019 at 12:40, Jkulin said:

Problem is that I would have bought the Redcat to use full frame with my Sony, but with stars like that I won't go near it.

I think the Redcat is performing very satisfactorily, whilst it’s not up to the quality of my FSQ85 it only cost a fifth of the price. This was a single fifteen second exposure on a not very transparent night so I think some of the random shapes are down to the atmosphere as much as jpeg artefacts also it was shot at 3200iso, I do realise the left hand edge is inferior but this will not be a problem when used with my CCD and CMOS cameras. When I get the time I'll convert the raw file or maybe the one I shot at 1600iso, I posted the brighter shot to show how good the vignetting was for this lens, it’s better than my Takahashi in that regard. A daylight comparison with my Canon 300mm F4 L lens showed it matched that for performance, maybe I’ll do a star test of them both together.

Managed to get a test shot out of my Redcat this week, here is straight out of the camera jpeg from a full frame DSLR, the bright star at the centre is Deneb, I'm pretty well pleased with the result but just wonder how it compares to others?

Thanks Mel

 They are getting very faint now, this is my latest video taken a couple of days ago and most of the satellites are mag 7 unless they’re flaring which will happen a lot less in winter, the faintest stars in the video are about mag 10.

Video of the SpaceX second stage carrying the first 60 Starlink Satellites passing over Oxfordshire 22 minutes after launching from Cape Canaveral this morning. Plenty of course corrections going on from the reaction jets. It passed directly overhead so I lost sight of it as I repositioned the tripod. Look out for the small dot following it which must be the fairing , it’s well below the spacecraft as after it passes overhead and is going away from me it then appears to be ahead of the spacecraft.

It was magical to watch and sorry about the heavy breathing on the audio 😀

Great news, my ieq45 is a fantastic mount but I've been eyeing up the CEM60 and the sexy new CEM40, any news of when that will be available?