Yawning Angel

4 hours ago, geoflewis said:

That's quite a story Alex, but your work was not in vain; it's a lovely image.

Thank you!

During this planetary season I've tried to focus on getting my C8 to perform to a level I'm happy with.

It's had an external focuser and motor, the Celestron dew rings (great bit of kit!) and a new camera. I even put a handle on the top rail! Lavished it with care, only for disaster to strike in the form of somehow managing to strip the aluminium threads out of one of the collimation screw holes!

After some panicky Googling and a fruitless search for a replacement secondary holder I bit the bullet, drilled it out and tapped it M4. After rebuilding it I was dubious (and started window shopping for a C11😇) but it collimated up remarkably well with the OCAL (oh, that should have been on the list too)

Star testing brought it to a point I was happy with so on the 30th I tried it out on Jupiter (and later Mars) to see if it was behaving

26 x 120 sec on Jupiter until the clouds moved me away, 5ms @ 350 gain and about 200fps giving around 24,000 frames per file. Seeing wasn't dreadful, which is good by the standards of NW England - some passing haze and thin clouds

Batch stacked all of them at 50% with the intention of making a short animation, but on review the small pause to refocus was really noticeable, so I thought to experiment with derotating the lot and seeing what WinJupos could make of it

I'm not sure I can expect much more from 8"

52 mins exposure time - Celestron C8, ZWO ADC, TS x1.5 barlow, IR/UV filter / Player One Mars C ii

4 hours ago, TheThing said:

Lovely crisp image.  How many panes did you stitch together?

Thank you! I think there were 6 contiguous panels that could be combined

4 hours ago, Dragon_Astro said:

Great animation, really like how you can see Jupiters’ shadow cast onto Io

Thank you! I had to recheck the frames for Io, because I thought it vanishing early was a stacking error 🙂

9 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

Nice capture and nice presentation too!

Kind of you to say so, thank you

12 hours ago, knobby said:

Excellent 👌

4 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Nice!

Thank you!

So much data! 45 minutes of captures, 15 videos, 135gb. 18000 frames per file via FireCapture. 10% stacked in AS!3

Processed in PixInsight, animation in Photoshop 

Io rotating behind and Europa just after a transit

Celestron C8 / x2 Powermate/ Player One Mars Cii

40 minutes ago, Kon said:

Excellent mosaic with lovely details and some of the colours are coming through nicely!

Cheers! I was quite happy with the colours in this: I've not previously got the same balance from OSC that I could get with mono

38 minutes ago, Kon said:

Nice smooth animation.

Thank you!

Not a massive resolution, but some detail clearly showing - aided I think by a ZWO ADC

Celestron C8 / x2 Powermate / QHY5iii462c + IR/UV cut

Not the clearest evening on the 17th, but a shadow transit and the GRS was a powerful lure! 71 frames (before the weather interrupted with finality!) compiled into the bounce animation in PS

Celestron C8 / x2 Powermate / QHY5iii462c + IR/UV cut

During the evening of the 17th I was noodling about with some Jupiter imagine, with a side excursion to the Moon and Mars. This is an accidental mosaic assembled from my random snapping away at interesting features - I only noticed opportunity when I processed them as a batch

I've been very disappointed with the C8 for quite a while, as it gave very soft images no matter how I tweaked the collimation - and then I replaced the Bob's Knobs with hex cap bolts. Absolutely night and day the difference. It actually holds alignment from night to night!

Oh, and the Celestron dew heater rings work really well and are very tidy 👍

Celestron C8 / x2 Powermate / QHY5iii462c + IR/UV cut

26 minutes ago, Simon128D said:

Very nice! Though I am surprised you didn't start to catpure the beginging of the Ganymede transit by the end of your capture. The GRS was just about to leave view when I started capturing the transit. 

Thank you! The start of the GRS transit was blocked by trees, and any further capture after that was blocked by the need for sleep 🙂 

11 hours ago, neil phillips said:

Seeing looked like it improved later good animation

Thank you. The air was very wet, but seeing did marginally improve into the wee small hours

14 minutes ago, callisto said:

Excellent 👍

Cheers! So much data rendered down to a 25 frame gif 🙂

2 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Super job 👍🏻

Thank you!

Jupiter from last night. 25 frames derotated from 75 capture (90sec RG and B each, 117gb!) files over about 2 hours

Celestron C8, x2 powermate, Player One Apollo 174m

Celestron C8 / x2 Powermate / asi178mm bin2

Fighting a bit of a windy evening, but pretty chuffed with how this turned out. 3000 frames per channel - IR bandpass + RGB, 15% stacked

Celestron C8, asi178mm (bin2), Powermate x2 - 4000mm f20

1500 frame each in RG and B plus IR bandpass (ProPlanet 642).

AS!3 Stacked 25%
Aligned in imPPG
Sharpened each channel with PixInsight RestorationFilter
LRGB combination with the IR as Luminance
Finally a slight curves adjustment to saturation

I was away when this one kicked off, so I assumed I'd not have a chance - but it lingers on

Imaged twice, for limb and surface detail. Clouds spoilt the last panel, but hey ho

Imaged this morning at 700mm, since I was about to pack up from an evening on the Veil nebula. 

LRGB filters / asi1600mm roi 640 x 480 then resample up x2 for visibility. Use what you've got (mounted) 🙂

Captured during the clear spell this week, amounting to 10 hours of exposures

APM 107/700 - asi1600mm - Baader filters - iOptron CEM60

48 x 5min Luminance
24 x 5 min each RG&B

Very much a version 1 process of the data - I'm used to brighter targets 🙂

10 hours ago, Roy Challen said:

Fantastic image!

Thank you!

Managed to get it passing M10 on the 15th  not yet 100% happy with the processing, which is proving tricky 😁

Thank you!

Yes, it’s around mag 7. Hopefully tomorrow it well placed with M10 for some interest. Finger crossed 🤞 

My first proper try at a colour comet image, and what a trial!

Stacked for the background stars, then pulled the stars out with StarXTerminator. Then ran CometAlignment on all of the subs, and integrated the RG & B comet files with some aggressive rejection to clear up most of the start trails.
Cleaned up the mono subs backgrounds. Combined into a colour image, then XTerminated some noise and sorted the colour balance
Curves adjustments to taste then layered the stars back in

Not 100% happy, as it still showing some diagonal artefacts from the stars but it's getting there. Hoping for a few more stabs at it 🤞

APM 107/700 + asi1600mm. 20 x 2min each in RG&B. Processed in PixInsight then Photoshop