Yawning Angel

Lego International Space Station, coming 1st of Feb - Not horribly expensive either

https://www.lego.com/en-gb/product/international-space-station-21321

Just enough time between now and then to find some shelf space 🙂

Thanks Pete, kind of you to say

The moon rose into view on the evening of the 12th with a stunning multi coloured moonbow, and clearly showing that the weather forecast was wrong yet again 🙂 

Since there were some patches of clear, I thought I'd do some cloud dodging and see what I could get. Rolled the roof off, fired up the gear and the sky had cleared a little. My intended target of the Horsehead nebula was, in soup, and glancing around with the Mk-I eyeball showed much of the same elsewhere. So I pointed to the moon and settled in to watched the fuzz stream past on Sharpcap

Not long after, the right bit of sky came clear and I was able to grab about 20 mins on target. The best of which gave me 5000 frames @ 4ms per frame, Evostar ED80, zwo asi1600mm-pro / Baader red filter.  Focused with Sharpcap's autofocus controlling my SESTO SENSO focus motor, which worked very well

Ran the .SER through PIPP for quality sorting then 10% stack in AS!3. A gentle hand with wavelets in registax and a final balancing pass in Photoshop's Camera Raw filter

First image of 2020. Not what I set out to capture, but I'm happy nonetheless

Had another try for the Horsehead once the clouds shifted and murked up the moon, but only managed one framing sub then the sky duvet was pulled up tight for the night

Action shot, I like to call "Moonlight failing on the Horsehead"

1 minute ago, Alexandros said:

the sun just went down so I'm off to set up my scope and try again

Good luck!

Solutions aside, it's possible to clean up:

You can tweek the rgb alignment in Registax, but any fix for the edges tends to introduce CA in the lower parts. I've brought the colours together in a compromise, which has sharpened it up a little. Then converted to B&W to drop the remaining distracting fringing

For a single shot, I'd keep the ISO fairly low to keep the noise under control and manage the exposure with shutter speed. You will find a single shot softer than a stacked video, as you're at the mercy of seeing

I seem to recall there are some grub screws around the collar that allow it to be centered and will aid it gripping - one opposite the clamp, and one on the bottom.

It will also need a bit of fine tuning to the shaft alignment, with the grub screws on the bush, to remove the wobble

Good luck, it's a great focuser

You can run Starnet to extract the star layer, then clean up the debris left over before recombination. Not fully automatic, but it’s an option that can give good results

Some general and sometimes light hearted guidance here: 

For comparison, this is with the older ZWO filters

Starnet (not star tools). Yes, there is a plugin:

pixinsight.com/forum/Starnet++

Could be the compression?

3 minutes ago, Rodd said:

What did you do to the background

Nothing other than removing the stars. These are the 2 'raw' files out of Starnet++ (starnet setting 64)

3 hours ago, Rodd said:

You did something else--I can't go to full resolution vieiwing

Sorry, it clicks through for me. I didn't reduce the size

3 hours ago, Rodd said:

How did you do that? 

I opened the jpg in PixInsight, duplicated it the ran Starnet++ on both. One to extract the star mask, the other to remove the stars.

Those 2 I saved and opened in paint.net (photoshop, but freeeeeee). I set the star mash on top, blend set to image burn then used a very low flow / transparent brush to drop the )( shaped light echos from the stars layer.

Finally I used a small amount of clone stamp on the background layer to remove the remaining more obvious bits. The background looks different, because using burn, the stars are quite reduced

I hope you don't mind, but I pulled the stars out of the 1600 image, dusted the microlensing artifact (not perfect, but less distracting?), then added them back, slightly de-emphasised. It's starting to suffering a little from repeated compression. The 8300 image is still a winner, I think

The last time I caught Saturn with the 120mc-s, I think it was sub 1sec exposures with maybe 50 gain . Getting it on chip is the hardest part by far. For ref, the below is one of the capture videos (tracking ended up pointing at a street light!) Celestron C8 with an ADC, as it was low low in the murk 😕

Keep the exposure length short, high gain and pan around methodically till you get on target, then you can tweak the settings

Good hunting!

Here's my take on the Elephant's trunk nebula in Ha, along with some of the output from Starnet++. I was just trying to understand it a bit better. The extraction of the stars seems very clean to my eyes

19 x 5mins, Skywatcher ED80 x0.85 / Baader 7nm Ha

Starless (PixInsight w Starnet++, default settings)

Starmap from Star

Starless + Starmap layer (colour dodge, 80%)

5 hours ago, Rattler said:

I added the file to the bin folder and followed the instructions but it's not detected. Any ideas?

Add just the files to the Bin folder, don't create a starnet subfolder

I’ve had success which freezing / flash heating stuck spacers in the past:

-Spray with a can of spray air, upside down so it’s the liquid coming out,  enough to chill it

-Warm on a hot surface for a few seconds, to expand the outside ring

-Unscrew, gripped with rubber cloth (the jar opening type)

-Clean with isopropyl alcohol 

Obviously, not easy if there are optical elements 😕

As a number of excellent recent posts will attest, this target looks amazing when rendered in the Hubble palette - However, that means a new filter wheel and a couple more filters snuck under the radar!

So, here's the Elephant's trunk nebula in Ha. Pretty much the full frame after the stacking edges had been tidied up. I'd never noticed that the Elephant has a head too, on the right, but I showed this to one of my children and he spotted it right away. Silly Daddy

Skywatcher Evostar 80ED w 0.85 reducer
19 x 300 sec exposures, Baader 7nm Ha filter
ZWO asi1600mm-pro @ -15 degrees & unity gain 
Celestron AVX put in a good show with about 0.35 RMS
Stacked in DSS with master dark, flats and dark flats

I would say "Processed in Pi", but my random button pushing didn't yield any significant improvements, so I left it with just a stretch, curves and a light touch of noise reduction. I'll revisit it with a tutorial in hand when the nights are grim

Comments gratefully received
 

I've found the asi1600 will hang on downloading if 2 different bits of software are connecting to it at the same time.

Try these steps:

• Ensure that PHD2 hasn't picked the 1600 for guiding, as it doesn't clearly distinguish between cameras from the same manufacturer (click the railway junction icon, next to the camera in the connect screen)
• Close ASICap
• Disconnect the 1600 from the link icon in SGP. GIve it a sec then hit the link icon in SGP again to reconnect. All should be well

Personally, I found all the off-the-shelf piers where too short for my requirements. What I did buy was the adapter plate suited for my mount, allowing me to swap it in future if I upgrade.

At first I commissioned a custom one from an astro supplier, however, they hashed it up 3 times with long delays between - so I built my own, if only to progress my obs build!

I've been meaning to write this sort of post for a while, so here are my thoughts on 'Lessons from a Roll-off build'. Some I learnt the hard way, others I caught early enough

• Before breaking ground, take panoramas of your chosen sites horizon (your phone can do this!). Review the site at night for lights etc
• Make sure your scope fits. Imagine you have your dream scope...make sure that'll fit too!
• Water finds a way! Roof rails should fall ever so slightly away from the rolling section, to prevent ingress along the rail
• Stainless annular nails are awesome, unless you need to pull some
• Good screws are worth their weight - Reisser Cutters where my choice
• End grain treatment for sawn wood!
• Season your cladding! Until it's sealed, it's a sponge and will shrink
• Construction softwood cares not for your 2mm tolerance.
• Run your power (and data) early in the build! Having mains in the under-construction obs is invaluable.
• You don't have enough wood
• Budget for insulation - it isn't a cheap afterthought
• Build in standard sizes where you can. Sheet material is usually 1200mm x 2400mm (yeah right, plus at least 5mm - don't trust the sizes!)
• Building materials are not square unless you check it. Timber isn't straight and 100x50mm (2x4) is 95x45ish
• Don't forget you need to lock it...build the door frame with this in mind
• Commercial grade stainless fittings are great for outside
• That hole in the ground is big enough, STOP DIGGING!
• Concrete don't fill as much as you think. Use a calculator for your volumes
• Just because the roof rolled yesterday, don't mean it will today. Test after any major changes, it's easier to fix before you've moved in
• Don't underestimate windlift. Secure the roof from both rolling off and lifting off
• Snow is heavy!
• Plan where your rainwater is going. Drain, soakaway etc
• Things will live under your obs if you let them. Things that like power cables for lunch and insulation for dinner. Stainless or copper mesh is cheap
• It will take longer than you ever imagined
• Set a budget!
• You will overrun your budget
• Unless you're know someone, are qualified or particularly cavalier, you'll need to pay an electrician - budget for it
• Good ventilation will help, but a desiccant dehumidifier might be on the cards too if you get lots of humidity / dew. Plan where it drains, plan where it is powered from
• You haven't planned for enough power sockets
• Do you want Wifi? If not...are you really sure?
• Security shouldn't be an afterthought
• Insurance! You can get specific cover, or extend your 'outbuildings' cover. Either way, tell them if you want cover
• Do you really need an external window?
• If you have a warm room, you need an internal window!
• Choosing lights will consume time...so much time!

I hope this helps someone - please feel free to add to the list

Happy building!

Unexpectedly clear tonight, but with a very bright moon again. Testing some replacement filters, so went for a ‘mineral’ moon, which has never been very successful for me

25% stack of 3000 each for RGB. Stacked in AS!3, wavelets in Registax and RGB combine and edit in Photoshop

Subtle saturation:

Enthusiastic saturation:

but no ‘argh, my retina!’ saturation 😀

47 minutes ago, blinky said:

I had heard/read that its not that great - it needs to be exactly aligned and it turned out it was not very easy to do that - think it was a review on cloudy nights, thats why I went for the Pegasus

It is a little bit of a faf with grub screws. I think I was up and running from unboxing to working in about 40 minutes

edit: If you download the software, the hardware instructions are in the zip - you can then see how it hangs together