Stub Mandrel

2 hours ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

The smell.. that gasoline smell. Smells like... smells like victory.

It seems to be 'California Night' so here's the one I took a few days ago, with a bit more processing. Nay bad with my suburban skies.

L-Enhance filter with cooled, modded 450D ,  31x 300s subs.

It's fascinating how your processing skills can improve over time. I went back to data collected over three sessions   2016 to January 2019.

The best data was 71  2-minute frames from 2016, the 30 later, guided, 5 minute subs didn't seem as good. An attempt at combined processing in 2019 wasn't very good, but I've tried again. I don't think this is too bad for a DSLR image, although the background is a bit mottled and  with 5 hours of data I had hoped it would show a bit more! I'm not convinced the 2016 image doesn't show more detail, despite being noisier.

2016  only image:

4 minutes ago, matt_baker said:

13 minutes ago, vernmid said:

Just the standard one that came with the scope.

Fair enough 😃

Sorry should've clarified, I meant for the guide scope

At a guess, and after carefully studying the photo for several seconds, I'd guess it's the same length as the standard one that came with the scope 🙂

15 hours ago, upahill said:

I can highly recommend the silicone socks too for keeping the heatblocks/nozzles fairly clean externally. Got mine included with the E3D kit, but available for a variety of hotends on eBay.

+1

2 hours ago, bendiddley said:

Does anyone store their 130PDS in a padded bag? If so what do you use? I've got a geoptik one for my 200PDS, need something similar but a bit cheaper!  Cheers.

I hang mine off a hook on the roof of my workshop.

I've just taken some 'real world' measurements.

It looks to me that ZWO have supplied a pretty much optimal set of adaptors, assuming a standard 55mm back focus for the typical field flattener or coma corrector.

Without the EFW:

ASI1600 --->  21mm T2 adaptor** ---> female/female adaptor** ---> T2-48mm adaptor**

6.5mm + 21mm + 11mm + 16.5mm =   55mm

**supplied with ASI

With EFW:

ASI1600 --->  EFW --->  T2-T2 male/male adaptor* ---> female/female adaptor** ---> T2-48mm adaptor**

6.5mm + 19.97mm + 1.96 mm + 11mm + 16.5mm =   55.93mm

*supplied with EFW

**supplied with ASI

Allowing for ~0.7mm shortening of the light path by the filter, this is pretty close again at 55.2mm.
 

9 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

You're not alone: I spent a week locked in humorous conflict with an SGL guest who preferred to scroll through the menus rather than use the shortcuts! Personally I like them but my hands are too small for one or two of the three fingered variants. In the next life I'm going to be taller...

Olly

Without <ctrl> - <alt> -  <Z> I would be lost 🙂

Thanks David. FW and focuser arrived today so hopefully I won't have any more issues!

This is one reason I like old PhotoPaint. You could copy an image and 'paste as new image' or  paste into an image as a new object (=layer but can have an irregular shape).

I'm about to take the nervous step from DSLR imaging to mono, with filter wheel, nb filters and lots more  complication.

Having used a DSLR (mostly a Canon 450D, modded and cooled) for about 5 years I have had some really pleasing results and some disappointing ones. In the last few months I have been using one of the new tri/dual band filters that lets through Hb, OIII and Ha. While I ahven't used it on many targets with a lot of OIII  it's results with Ha targets have been remarkable, exceeding the results I get with a 7nm Ha filter.

Last night I had a six hour session with my 450D - quite a venerable DSLR. I used it with my ED 66, guided, 5-minute subs and used the Optolong L-Enhance filter. I have suburban skies, allegedly Bortle 5, but I wouldn't class them that good. All of these have been processed quite simply: Stack in DSS using super pixel mode. Stretch using x^1/5 in FITS liberator, combine into RGB with photoshop. Use Noel's  'reduce horizontal banding' to get rid of slight effect in background of red layer (noticeable if background too light). Select background and use Gradient Exterminator to balance colour (no noticeable gradient to get rid of). Use Noel's  increase star colour action a few times. Select brighter stars, expand and feather, then use selective colour to turn red stars orange and cyan stars bluer (this corrects the effect of the L-enhance filter on stars). Run HVLG. Curves to set background level and boost mids without boosting stars. Save and open in Astra Image. Gentle denoise (Pacman and Monkey Head only, California with 3 Hrs didn't need any denoise). Multi-scale contrast. Save as 48 bit TIFF and 24-bit PNG.

My conclusion is that these new filters, by reducing light pollution and enhancing Ha in particular, offer a significant step up for DSLR users and do narrow the gap with mono imaging. Also, I think accepting the reduced resolution of super-pixel images helps reduce teh signal-noise deficit of OSC as well.

One experiment I tried shows that the l-enhance images make an excellent luminance layer on top of ordinary RGB images which may have better colour but less detail.

Here are last night's results:

Pacman Nebula, 22 x 300s

California Nebula, 31 x 300s

Monkey Head Nebula, 21 x 300s

Well this is an education.

The i5 laptop with 512gig SSD restarts in under ten seconds. It flies.

Checked and my ageing desktop is i3.

Can't have my lappy faster than my desktop... can I?

1 hour ago, stash_old said:

Ascom are pretty up todate - have to be they rely on Microsoft .net etc - but who knows - still it all works.:-)

For some values of up to date... Ascom uses .Net 3.51  but the current stable release is 4.8

Good idea for a thread, Charl.

I've dug out these from 2017.

0.1 is way low, I use 0.9 and I typocally get guiding of 0.6 to 0.8 arc seconds  RMS.

My guidescope is currently fixed to a side by side bar with gaffer tape 😎

3 hours ago, stash_old said:

click on eqascom - his shows the files - click and down load the top file - not the pad download file shown in green.  I will be honest done know if the PAD down includes std EQMOD - never tried it.   It does feel that its coming to "End of Life" with in terms of support - IMHO

Yep,. I figured that eventually. Sourceforge is set up so each program should have a separate page, that is meant for old versions.

A bit worrying that the ascom downloads keep referring to W7 as well. I might dump all the downloads on an archive.

9 minutes ago, stash_old said:

Ascompad is to control Ascom mounts via a game stick thingy - gamepad

http://eq-mod.sourceforge.net/apindex.html

 

Eqascom is the normal eqmod bit

Agree its a bit confusing !!

A bit???

The EQMOD site sends you to sourceforge where the download button only gives you ASCOMPad.

I can see an EQASCOM folder but although I can open and explore it, I can't see how to download it. The green button just installs ASCOMPad.

Wait.. I may have it...

Help?

Are these the same thing?

I'm trying to download EQmod and instead I get ASCOMPad which looks related but different and much simplified.

17 hours ago, 5haan_A said:

Hi guys,

 

I am currently out in the field, and I noticed this after I came to check up on my scope. 

Theres spiders of frost all over the lens. Inside and out. Is it my session finished for now? And is it a major problem? 

 

Haven't got the foggiest idea how I would begin to deal with the cause of the frost on the inside of the OTA.

 

Best,

 

Last night it was well below zero and mount, scopes, tripod, computer, computer  bag and everything else was frosted worse than that pic.

Both my scope and guide scope had a 'hot hands' handwarmer bag held close to the lens cell with a rubber band and I( didn't get any condensation or frost on the lenses. Cost about £0.50p per night, and at the end of the session a friend and I were both able to warm our hands with the bags.

...yet again, but my first one with the ED66 and my first with the L-enhance, which has done for the faint blue reflection nebulas, but controlled Alnitak nicely.

Just 13 500s subs, if I can get another 27 then those fainter bits would tidy up nicely.

No cooling on the 450-D, my battery died.

The L-Enhance has worked well again.

27 300s subs, cooled, modded 450D, 66 ED scope, HEQ5.

The tadpoles themselves haven't shown up very well - what filter is needed for them?

1 hour ago, astro mick said:

Very nice indeed.This has the making of a good image.

Mick.

I love the way the filter has controlled Alnitak 🙂

Great night at Rosliston yesterday, loads of folks turned up, I imaged until midnight when my computer shut down with low battery.

In the cold everything iced up severely, but my 'hot hands' kept the scope's clear. Fog rolling in and out seemed to be just a thin layer  despite being fairly tick at times, as it barely affected sub quality.  seeing was good in the end, close to midnight, with naked eye detail in the milky way and lots of stars.

How's this for a single, unprocessed, uncooled (my leisure battery finally died) RAW dslr SUB?

Taken with my modded 450D, ED 66 and L-Enhance filter. Again NO stacking, processing whatsoever this is the 5-minute sub exactly as it came off the camera!

Woo Hoo! That's sorted it.

That's a relief.