gorann

Great image with a lot of fuzzies in addition to the major galaxies! What Newtonean is it? Maybe the sky is a bit too bright for my taste. It is around 35 - 40 (PS units), while most seem to prefer it to be around 20 (I think Olly says it should be 23/23/23). There is no apparent structure in it so I do not think it is integrated flux nebulosity (IFN).

A less complicated way is to use the "Increase Star Color" action in PS (It is included in the Astronomy Tools, aka Noel Carboni's actions). You can do several rounds with it and it brings the colour around the blown out core into the core.

Looks very promising indeed and colours are right now - but do not mind what @wimvb says, hurry up to get it into PS to polish and sharpening it up, it has spent enough time in PI 😖

The Musky future........

So the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has so far approved Elon Musk´s operation of more than 7,000 SpaceX satellites in low Earth orbit. How can an agency in charge of 9.8 million km2 (the area of the US) approve something affecting the whole 510 million km2 of the Earth? My calculator tells me that the US only makes up 2% of the earth surface (and could maybe claim the same fraction of the space above it).

Obviously they are not going to be invisible! Wherever we go (excepte very close to the poles) we will be reminded at night that a private company can just do this to all of us on earth without asking!

No quality decrease with the 2" TS reducer, a fine piece of optics, and the 3" has the same opics, just a bigger diameter, so I trust it will perform nicely. If you are going to use the ASI1600 the 2" reducer would work fine (cheaper) and you could just put it into the eye-piece holder of the scope so you do not need any adapter to attach it to the scope.

I get a bit confused here - you initially said that you would use an ASI1600 (much smaller chip). As others have said here: in California you probably do much better with a cooled camera (like the ASI) I have an Esprit 100 which is a really great and fast little scope. I just bought a TS 3" 0.79x reducer for it: https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p6085_TS-Optics-REFRACTOR-0-79x-Reducer-Corrector---full-sized-sensors---M68-connection.html That brings the FL down to 430 mm. The image circle of the Esprit 100 is claimed (by FLO) to be 40 mm, so with the reducer it would be 32 mm which would be plenty for the ASI1600 but not enough for a full frame DSLR. The good thing with the TS reducer is that I only needed two adapters with it to screw it onto the Esprit (costed 75 + 19 Euro). Fitting the Riccardi reducer to the Esprit would mean that I need the following adapters according to an email from Marcus Ludes at APM telescopes (citing it directly): ASI 1600 MM with 17.5 mm back focus at Esprit 100 need follow adapters ( 81 mm – 17.5 mm – 30 mm = 33.5 mm after Riccardi ) - Adapter M74 x 1 ID-Thread to M63 x 1 ID Thread, APM custom made Euro 60 - Riccardi Reducer M63 - Adapter TSO-M63a-M48a , 3 mm thick Euro 44 - Adapter ( 17-23 mm ) TSM48vvar Euro 32 - Adapter TSVF208 , 8 mm Euro 29,00 - Adapter TSM48i-T2a, 4 mm Euro 19 So you would end up with 5 adapters costing 184 Euro, so now you would have to add 50% of the cost of the actual reducer on a pile of metal rings...... And I would expect that the quality of the TS reducer is about the same as the Riccardi. What I do have to admit is that I have not been able to test the 3" TS reducer yet since I have no astrodarkness up here now. However, I have previously used the 2" version of the TS reducer on my Esprit 150 and stars were perfect to the edge with my ASI1600.

Ole-Alexander just posted this scary image of Elon's satellites on Astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/407590/

Well, it is bad enough already in some directions (try IC2118 the Witch Nebula), and that is with only 2000 satellites right now. Musk alone wants to send up 12000!

Yes, I do like the way the stacking procedures in PI magically remove satellites. I no longer have too spend hours clone stamping as I did in the old Nebulosity-stacking days.

Terrible! I posted on the same subject on Friday after having read about it on the BBC. Here is my post:

For those of us engaged in imaging, here are some scary news: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48289204 Apparently Elon Musk alone is planning to put up 12 000 satellites, and others are also planning for sending up more satellites. Right now there are 2000 functional satellites according to the article and that is bad enough for astrophotography. I am dreading what our subs will look like in a near future. I did not see any such fears expressed in the news article even if it is in the science-environment section.

Interesting thread. Like some say there, most of us would probably be more interested in an APS-C sized mono CMOS due to the cost of filters for a full frame chip (and need for scopes with large image circles). According to that CN thread, ZWO have said that square 2" filters are recommended and that would probably cost as much as the camera if not more. 60Mp is also a bit over the top but it can of course be software binned.

I just stumbled on this camera being advertised on the OPT site and they take pre orders. When I googled it I see that OPT may have indicated a price of 5000 USD at some point (see attached screen dump) but on the OPT site no price is now given. https://optcorp.com/products/zwo-asi6200mm-p Does anyone know anything more about this camera? Seems like the one many have waited for.....

I think Olly is right in saying that there is nothing wrong with a well collimated Newton, and it is likely to outperform an achromat. Have a look at what Jens Zippel produces with his 10" Newton (and a 6" Newton would not be very far behind in the right hands). He gets a Top Pick or Image of the Day recognition for every second image he posts on Astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/users/Jedi2014/ I think a good idea would be to stick to your Newton until you saved up for an apo, if you decide you really want a refractor. Buying an achromat now would make it take longer to save up for an apo.

Thanks! I am fully on the pragmatist side!

Thanks! That is what I also would try first if I have strong Ha and Oiii data (as often suggested by Olly).

Superb images both of them, and this is a question to both Peter and Olly: How did you mix in the NB data to the RGB? Just Ha to red and Oiii to blue? Or did you only use the RGB data for the stars? Göran

Wim @wimvb just had his first season with MN190. He may have an opinion....

One problem is of course that the nicest planets (Saturn and Jupiter) will be more or less out of reach from Northern Europe for the next few years if I got it right.......

Great image with an ingenious combination of scopes - letting the old London scope help out by looking through the fog where the Spannish one could not reach. I like the idea of mixing FL and exposure times to tame objects like this.

When I replaced my Baader 7nm Ha for a Baader 3.5 nm Ha, my impression was that it made a very significant improvement, but that is so far from a single night with the 3.5 nm and seeing could have been unusually good. Maybe someone else have compared them?

Guys, I am looking forward to hear about your experiences with this new flter, so place your orders! I need a 2" one and I see it is not for free at Astroshop.eu (366 Euro) but I am in no hurry since astrodarkenss has left us up here for a few months?.

From reading the article this seems very promising and I really hope it is not just a hype made up by the media and PR people that we all have at the universities these days - unfortunately priorities at universities are now mostly about being seen by media and attracting students. But hopefully that is not the case in this case. Maybe I am just an old grumpy professor.....