Stub Mandrel

Me too, just done them tehy will do for both nights. 🙂

Lol - I like the combination of hard anodised and CNC'd aluminium with a bit of broom handle...

Found the double cluster, saw M31 and M31 clear as day but couldn't see M110. May just have seen the deer lick group. My alt is too slippy and my az is too sticky, despite use of Mr Sheen. mY best bit of sky for observing was mostly the huge dso-free void south of Cygnus. No nebula filters... Went to bed at 2:15. Set the rig up to do the Little Dumbell and an alarm for 4:30. Got up at 4:30 skies seemed a bit pale. Computer had restarted (thanks microsoft) but I think my 'active hours end at 4' so hopefully not too much lost. Saw moon, so reconnected mount and put on lunar tracking and manually pointed the scope and got a truckload of subs of the new moon before it hit our chimney.

The HEQ5 is between an EQ5 and an EQ6, I recall capacity is 15kg?

See the post i made at the same time as you - I suspect these are as near perfect conditions as I will ever see at home!

Tonight is amazing. Before it was fully dark I got some really good captures of Jupiter - it was barely moving even in 25ms exposures, the moons were pin sharp and the red spot was clear even being near the limb. I got out my 10" dob and I was able to go up to x320 on jupiter and Saturn. On Jupiter I could see polar bands as well as the two equatorial ones and even the spot before it disappeared into the limb. Only time I have seen all four moons on the same side of it. Saturn I could easily see the shadow on the ring, hints of banding on the planet and even flashes of the cassini division either side. I have never been able to image anything in Sagittarius because of skyglow and LP, but in teh end I got a load of subs of the Swan nebula - it was even showing in a 15 second test sub. Doing the bubble now. Struggling to find things in the dob with poorly adapted eyes and just lack of skill, but i've seen Andromeda and M57 and looked right through the dumbell! I thought I would try one of these legendary 'star tests' to see how good my scope is. I pointed at Altair. Out of focus I could see the secondary supports etc. Focused in tight then backed off. I couldn't believe it, barely any movement and there were two perfect and complete circles around a central point. It is clearly between 9 and 10 on the 'Pickering scale' http://www.damianpeach.com/pickering.htm. Then I checked my imaging rig - the HEQ5 is achieving 0.73" with the 150PL, a perfect match for the pixel scale. At last! A night when, finally, everything comes together! I just wish I could find some more DSOs!

Don't know if these two experiences are relevant: A few weeks ago I was doing Ha with my DSLR, before it got dark enough for DSOs I had a shot at a very low down moon. I got one of my crispest moon images despite the longer exposures. Was this because the narrowband helped overcome atmospheric dispersion, or because it was beating the seeing? But it reminds me that planetary/moon imaging shows just how much the sky wobbles on a short timescale - it amazes me how we can get any sharp images with long exposures! Tonight... it's really good seeing and really good transparency. That's so rare for me. This is actually the first time I have ever been able to collect data in Sagittarius. Despite beautiful star colours on 2-second exposure with my guide cam(!) when Ni pointed it at M24 I decided to go for M17 as it's probably my only chance ever. But i literally (as in literally, Olly!) only have less than two hours; in these circumstances I really don't think anything other than OSC is practical. I have even gone down to 2-minute exposures because experience tells me the skyglow will be too much for 5-minutes, and I haven't got a clip filter the only option for the 150PL. I've looked at two subs, and YES! I am getting swan-shaped ha so something good will happen. For such a 'smash and grab' opportunity only a DSLR will do. Plus I think I got my best Jupiter data for the year by a country mile, sadly saturn went behind the roof. Might have a go at it later but other targets are calling.

Me too... I can see a short section of milky way at the zenith on about 2 days a year. Fortunately tonight seems to be shaping up to be one of those!

I seem to have got usable data for at least one target last night. Need to get flats.

Just for comparison, to prove teh DSLR can take a half-decent Ha image, this was last year:

Just for a laugh, this data from the 20th is probably the worst I have ever got, through a 7nm Ha filter and a DSLR. Hazy cloud, moonglow and lumps of dust rolling around on the sensor as the scope was pointed almost vertically - but even these three things don'#t explain why it was just SO awful! Green is very low but there was a surprising amount of data on the blue channel. After stretching very crudely, it does show that there is overlap between all the pixels.

Last night spoilt by thin and intermittent cloud, really. Stayed up to 2 but not sure how much usable data I got. Annoying as the HEQ5 was tracking at 1.05" which isn't bad with the 150PL hanging off it. Left it set up and parked, tried for mercury this morning while the sun itself was still behind the house. Couldn't see anything but there seemed to be a big white haze. Will try Venus late afternoon when the sun goes behind the tree, as it's 'trailing' the sun. Will then have a last shot at Jupiter and Saturn, before another wasted night failing to get DSO data 😞

Apparently home-roasted melon seeds are superior to pumpkin seeds...

I think a good starting point is to work out what is limiting the quality of your images. For me I have a relatively small section of sky I can image with reasonably controlled LP, supposedly Bortle 5 but only on very clear nights - the thinnest of cloud picks up LP. Weather and reality mean I typically get a couple of night's imaging a month, and 4-5 hours is a good session. My main cause of poor results appears to be when I have thin cloud which results in poor signal to noise. My camera is a modded and cooled Canon 450D, and to be honest stretching my darks suggests background noise is so low they re only needed to remove hot pixels. My view is that without access to better skies and a bigger view, it isn't worth it because I will always be limited to the few targets that are directly over our house at the start of a session, so missing a filter due to a late start or poor weather could mean waiting at least a year for another try. I am really torn - I honestly don't know what would be the best solution for me. One thing I would like to do is see a fair comparison between cooled OSC camera and my cooled, modded DSLR. I suspect the cost of a cooled colour cam is not worth it. Mono may be, but only if I can get the data. I think @pete_l makes a fair point. I can sometimes get usable images for a few bright targets in one night, and then add more data from furher years. But it would be nice to do narrowband, although the cost of a cooled mono cam plus filters, even 1 1/4", is a bit scary.

I don't think long exposures cause any 'strain', its sheer number of mechanical actuations that matters. Longer exposures = fewer exposures.

Not diffcult to arrange, the splitter prisms come up as surplus items regularly. With stacking you don't even need the precise alignment of all three sensors, as long as they are focused.

Surely you already have LRGB data to play with? Can you use 'pixel math' in Pixinsight to do the work?

Please sir, Why don't we image LRG and compute B as L-(R+G) ? Or even LMY? Then G = L-M, B = L-Y and R= L -G +B or R = (M+Y)-L Much quicker, but would need filters with sharp cutoffs... I'm sure someone will be along soon to say why it won't work!

Much better, but I think you should be able to get a more natural colour balance. Good idea to save as a PNG for upload to the website, saves having to download and then fire up a viewer.

Did a session in Ha a few days ago. The results were pretty poor, mostly because I had the scope pointing up and an intrusive dust bunny in a different place on each frame so flats wouldn't take it out. Also, very noisy - thin cloud? A shame as my guiding was rock solid at 0.65" for about three hours! But... I made a point of focusing at the 2/3 point, I have always focused at the centre before. Result was round stars across the whole APSC frame, so that IS a good piece of advice to follow in the future.

Thanks Les, I missed one this morning, but clouded out anyway.

I've got a few events on https://transit-finder.com/, but it doesn't say anywhere whether the times given are UTC or BST? Trying to duplicate the events in Stellarium suggests BST, although I couldn't get it to duplicate an ISS transit exactly so I'm less than sure... Does anyone know what times it uses

I have a very similar one, it runs warm to the touch. I clamped a decent sized heatsink to it and it greatly reduced the noise.

I use Alibre Atom now, it's very easy to use and fast. It costs about £100. I can send anyone dropping me a PM a link to a free 6 month licence to try it out.

'Double click or tap image for options' before you submit.