Stub Mandrel

Couple from last night, and 20 mins each of RGB on Andromeda, after an hour each of SHO on a rather noisy Cave. Collimation wasn't too good...

I use a ZWO ASI120MC for guiding with PHD2. I never have problems finding stars, but often have issues with poor connectivity with the camera. This seems to have got worse of late. What happens is that the time between frames gets longer, and longer and longer... Reconnecting the camera, in software or by unplugging it makes no difference. Restarting PHD2 makes no difference. Restarting the computer sometimes works. The only thing that works reliably is: Close PHD2 Open the camera in Sharpcap (where it invariably works) Close Sharpcap. Reopen PHD2 and reconnect the camera which will now work reliable for 'a period of time' which could be ten minutes or a few hours... The problem is somewhat intermittent and I have a suspicion it might be EQMOD related, not just PHD2. I am sure it isn't a camera/driver issue as it always works fine in Sharpcap. Note that 8 bit/16 bit mode doesn't seem to affect this.

I'm having a go at the cave nebula tonight, first 130P-DS session for months. Hopefully the collimation isn't too bad...

10m is pretty much the limit for USB.

Definitely showing here on Sunday night's data. This has been 'Winjuposed' over about 20 minutes which I think must 'smear it out' a bit

Those are NASA's pictures not mine!! 🙂

I need to go back to my Neptune data and see if I can rescue it with better settings in PIPP. Meanwhile, here are five planets from last night with my 150PL, ASI120MC, 3x barlow and ZWO ADC. So far I haven't been able to improve Jupiter by drizzling, although Saturn and Mars responded well. Uranus is just a dot, so left as it was!

I'm increasingly convinced that a 'white limb' on Mars is not a processing artefact. What do folks think? My observation is that its doesn't appear on similar targets or follow the whole of the limb. Look at some recent SGL images (I know some people process this feature out) and these from NASA:

Well done folks! Some great work gone on there. Bonus to X6GAS for getting it the right way round! >ducks<

Very easy, if the two images have the same crop, just paste one over the other. It will create a new layer and all you have to do is change its mode to 'colour' (or luminance if the more detailed image is 'on top') then adjust its transparency percentage to taste. If the same scale but different crops, you will need to manually line the top one up - set its transparency to 50% to facilitate this.

You wouldn't want to pick a fight with him. The Dalek looks a bit 'ard as well... 🙂

Sorry, I meant the main group, not group 1. I do think it would be helpful and intuitive if main group control frames didn't get used if there are versions in one of the numbered groups. Also, here's an issue I have encountered (the details are arbitary). Night one I take 150 second subs, and make flats. Night two, I take 300 second subs, but can use the same flats as nothing was changed. A week later I take 300 second subs and new flats. That means I need the same flats for sessions 1&2 and the same darks for sessions 2&3. The problem is, I can't put the same flats into group 1 and 2; ditto I can't use the darks in two groups. The only solution is to make a master flat and dark and duplicate them. This is a bit of a pain. It would be useful to be able to this as it often crops up when I try to combine data from earlier years with more recent data.

There is a setting for printing walls thinner than the nozzle diameter in Cura, but I find results can be poor.

Cheers David. May I add a sneaky feature request or two? Can you make the graphs and sliders wider? Even if you don't change the resolution it would make them easier to use. The other would be that if there are control frames of any type in both group 1 AND in any other group, not to combine them when preprocessing the later group. E.g. at present if I have subs and a darks, flats and bias in Group 1 and in Group 2 I have subs and flats from a different evening, it will currently apply an average of both the group 1 and group 2 flats to the group 2 subs (as I understand it). I know this can be avoided by butting darks and bias in group 1 and one set of flats and subs in each of group 2 and 3. But it would be more intuitive if (say) I have set up a file list for a first session in group 1, then I just add any new control frames and subs for further sessions to later groups, knowing that any superseded flats, darks or bias will be ignored.

I think you have pulled out much more of the fainter nebulosity. Why not mix in about 10-20% of the original version as colour only, just enough to lift yours without saturating it?

Lovely image. Definitely around twice the resolution of my 6" scope, you make me want to add Sii and Oiii to my Ha image though!

As a 130P-DS user, either will be more than adequate. If you were imaging at 1800mm it might be more critical...

There's an app you can download - Polarfinder by Jason Dale It shows you where on a 'clock face' Polaris needs to be positioned. Makes it all very quick and easy

"The New Ultimate Guide to Imaging the Universe" Presumably the old ultimate guide wasn't ultimate enough? 🤪

Ah yes, the people who wrote the new Firefox for Android...

Here's an update, I tried the setup a second time with a camera for planetary. Two problems - I need to move the mirror up 13-20mm for use with my ADC as with it I can't get enough in-focus. The other was something that was intermittent and confusing on my first test - sometimes the scope was just not tracking fast enough. The problem turned out to be the drive roller, this is a section of 13mm bore rubber pipe on a 3D printed core. I thought the roller was slipping on the sector but this wasn't the issue. It turned out that under the weight of the scope the pipe was crushing slightly, making the wall thinner and slightly greater in circumference. This looosened its grip on the inner core which at low speeds was prone to slipping inside the pipe. The cure was obvious - I glued the pipe to the core instead of relying on friction. A full test with the scope on the platform is running now and after 30 minutes the movement is exactly as expected. Phew! Hopefully we will get a clear hour or two over the weekend for a proper test.

I bought a cloud, now I'm waiting for a new telescope to arrive.

I think that's true of all clamp meters. The clamp part works like a transformer to measure high currents so can only be used for AC.

That looks pretty typical, maybe a little high. The right-hand trace isn't as straight as I'd expect, usually I see just little kink near the start with my HEQ5 rather than the gradual change.

It's probably adjusting the image to strecth the dynamic range, is it on an HDR setting?