Stub Mandrel

Rosliston right now

Great start! The yellow top and greeny blue bottom is caused by 'atmospheric dispersion' - the atmosphere acts like a prism when things are low down. You can get rid of this with an 'atmospheric dispersion corrector', unfortunately they are a bit pricey..

A very small M27, because I used the 130PDS, plus using super pixel mode halves the resolution. Only about 50 minutes of DSLR Ha. Ha image alone, and combined with a colour version from 2016.

If you are that tight, just rub a candle on the blade. 🙂

This one has really responded well to 3x drizzle. Lots more detail. The png is to big to load, so here's a jpg (sadly loses some of the detail gained!):

Why image the moon in Ha? Because my scope was set up and focused but it wasn't dark enough to start guiding reliably. I Used PIPP to isolate the red channel as a mono image from about 100 subs and stacked the best 70%.

There's an awful lot of complaints on Twitter. Now the Sky at Night programme is unwatchable, iplayer keeps freezing - far more gap than content GRRR! They have probably decided no-one wants to watch it and have throttled the bandwidth...

I've put a formal complaint in using their awful online form. Make sure you choose 'television' not iPlayer as otherwise it will make you start again from the beginning. >fume< Also tweeted my annoyance to @BBCFOUR

I can't believe it! They get to 20:18 just after Challenger disaster, about to explain eth o-ring scandal and ... cuts to Tennis!

I'm 14 minutes in watching it on iplayer...

You are right. The colour layer I picked up from 2018 had patches where the nebula was balanced to grey, so any stretching just left them bleached out. I've had a second go, still going for 'impact' rather than tastefulness, but I colour balanced the RGN image better first:

Thanks to @perdrix for advice on how to stack multiple sessions of data in Deep Sky Stacker successfully. I think this is a bit over-wrought, but hey, it's fun to revisit old data and flog it to death with the happy-stick!

Thanks. Interestingly, I've noticed that the new version is displaying faint RAW images much better. My Ha RAWS show a lot of red on the camera (presumably it does some scaling automatically) but in windows photo viewer and teh old DSS they only show stars and barely a trace of red. In the new DSS I can see the nebulosity clearly. Is this a change - or perhaps because I may have had auto white balance switched on? (Thanks for your patience!)

Or use cutting oil or paraffin, really help on sticky aluminium alloys.

I'm struggling! Lots of errors that don't seem to be right - telling me I can't use more than one master flat or dark. I'll start again from scratch in case it's because I'm changing an old file list and note any issues as I go: First, you need a file in the main group before it will creates a second group - that's OK one bias file will do for all. Added lights to groups 1,2 & 3 It won't let me put the same file into two groups (I want to use the same dark in more than one group). I've created a copy of my master flat. Decided to use the same dark across all groups. Right... stacking now.

Brilliant - I may now disappear into a processing hole for several weeks right when I need to get some serious work done!

Ah, sorry, I didn't realise you meant those sort of heavy duty cutters. Might struggle on such a short piece, plus the end would still need tidying up.

h thanks, does taht mean I can have a main group with nothing in it - or just a bias?

Some things I have learned: Use a Barlow. x3 is not too much with a 1200mm scope. It's definitely worth getting an ADC, set it using an eyepiece, also useful to get the planet well centred. Use a proper planetary cam, even the cheapest will outperform a webcam because it will save RAW video. Spend lots of time focusing. When you think you have it right, spend as much time again getting it even better. Mono doesn't offer gains over one shot colour - you have to use Winjupos to derotate the RGB and it is hard to get decent results, especially if you have a moon or moon shadow moving faster than the rotation of the planet. The 5000 frame 'quick capture' in Sharpcap is pretty much optimal for Jupiter. Accept that with the planets so low down seeing, transparency and dispersion will all limit what you can achieve. This is from my only session on Jupiter this year, with a 6" Newtonian, a 150PL.

I think a pipe cutter will struggle beyond about 1mm wall thickness. A neat job could be done by wrapping a sheet of paper around the outside - this will give a very accurate cutting guide, go over the end of the paper with a sharpie to transfer the line to the tube. Cut witha hacksaw just shy of teh line, then file it until it is neatly on the line. It would be a nice job to finish with anodising.

I can see the moon, but not Jupiter, in broken cloud.

K3WL!

My neighbour's leylandii do a good job of blocking out the closest streetlight for me!

Straight through finder and turn the map upside down. I can't get my head around the view through an ordinary diagonal.

Good job I only just noticed this - I've put in a good day's work today, but I would have been sorely tempted!