Star101

2 minutes ago, Adreneline said:

I share your optimism however the site owner has posted a message saying it is a “catastrophic loss of data” and images will need to be uploaded again.  He’s already offering free upgrades to those affected. I feel sorry for the guy - he seems distraught. 🙁

Yeah, I just read that. I would like to think that he has backups from a week ago, if not the last few days. Not that I use AB as storage of my images but knowing of businesses using severs, its good practice to have full backups at all times. Don't rely on RAID. 

I recall something similar happened a while back. Images disappearing. After a couple of weeks, everything started working again. I think that was some sort of syncing after an outage or update. 

Don't get me wrong. I do feel for the guy. He just needs some time to figure the problem out and sort it. I do read some others offering their assistance too.

I'm sure its just a glitch.

In this day and age, systems are backed up regularly. Even if the system crashed and drowned in the floods. There should be a off site backup somewhere. I'm not worried

Thinking about it. Its a weekend. Probably a system update that is slowing everything down and causing this issue. Give it a couple of days and it will sort itself out.

Discovered this the other night and started to image. The weather has turned bad since so not able to carry on for now. Will try later when clear skies and no wind. Meanwhile, a quick process to see how its looking.

This is a crop. Not much else near this. This meant had to push to right hand side to image while guiding on only star I could find nearby using OAG.

50 x 120s Lum

ASI 183MM Pro

C11 on Mesu 200. Guided using Lodestar X2 on ZWO AOG.

Started a long story...drifting away. Decided to keep it to the point. Hence---

My ZWO 183MM Pro failed to cool -12C below ambient. Always running at 100% cooler.

Took a look...Fan not working. Took note of fan part number - Discontinued.

Purchased this part instead. Works OK so far. Thought I'd pass on the info

Part number I used for new fan on my ZWO ASI 183MM Pro is 

AV-F4010MB UL CE

Its a 2 pin plug, 40mm x 40mm x 10mm 12DC 0.1A fan. ( Original was 0.08A ) 

Easy to replace. 3 screws at back of Camera, unsrew. Disconnect the fan ( unplug it) Remove the rear plate the fan is attached to. Remove 4 x screws holding fan and guard. Install new fan. Replug fan. Screw rear cover back in place. Test  5 minutes at most.

Hope this helps anyone.

That's a good'un. I can smell the cheese from here.  

I didn't realise Virgin Galactic had started flying the public! They must have gotten lost and strayed very close to that thing!  

Well done. You should be very proud of that mosaic. Its amazing. 

Not sure how you are using APT. I dont use it myself. However, my method is by using Cartes Du Ceil. I select the object I wish to image on CdC. Select "move scope to here" Then take an image of the sky, plate solve that image. Sync the scope up with CdC map. If the scope is not perfectly on target. Select target again and select "move scope to here" again. That usually puts me dead on target. Image away all night if required

Hope this helps

Very nice.

Thanks for highlighting this.

I must say, I have not read this post. Just watched the video. At first I was thinking wow a bit overkill for a ror shed. But the end result is WOW!! Very nice indeed. 

Fantastic build. 

Thanks for sharing

Dave 

4 minutes ago, GrampyG said:

Any one know how long Juan takes to send camera? I ordered a 600d just before the New year, paid by PayPal, paid 30th December. I've not heard anything since

Have you tried sending him an email?

He does state that he has a full time job and this is his side line. Maybe he is just busy with work! 

I was reading this months (Jan 2020) Astronomy Now magazine, page 42. Mentions Jupiter and Saturn being just 6 arc mins apart.  Very low in the sky for me though.

I did some work of CdC and was really surprised at how close these two planets will appear.  Pluto is not too far away either!

Anyway, posted here for reference

Its cloudy here...

Very nice image. Love the colour. Very smooth.

And I thought I had LP problems .....Looks like a great All Sky Cam though. Perfect for my sky. And at that price!! 

Looks very good to me Carole. 

As Skipper Billy says...Make sure, when the message springs up saying...The scope thinks its pointing East ( or West ) Make sure you select the correct button at the bottom of that message.

From memory - I mostly image in the East. When ever I have this issue, the scope thinks its pointing West but when plate solved springs up saying the scope is pointing West but appears to be pointing East. I select the correct button below ( Pointing EAST ) then select Correct ( Accept it ) and Enter.  Works fine after that.

My point is, I would spend ages Plate Solving and saying Accept, yet the scope would still start slewing and crash.....Must select the bullet point dot East or West , at the bottom of the message to correct it.

Mesu 200 with Sitech II Controller

1 minute ago, ollypenrice said:

It would be unusual for me, now, to spend more than ten hours on a single frame image, I think, but that does sound about right for a single frame image with five filters, Ha, OIII, L, R, G, B.

On the other hand, getting it down to ten hours has taken me ten years...

lly

10 hours? Isn't that a TEST SHOT for you Olly!!

Dave.

2 minutes ago, Chris49 said:

Thanks Dave.

Presumably that is with your C11?  I've never used a refractor, but people seem to get HFR of ~1.2 with those.  Is 3.5 to 6 all I can expect with a reflector?

Yes, that was with the C11. Stars do look more bloated on reflectors. Personally, I focus with the Bat mask then check the stars and manually tweak the focus to get the small background stars to come into view. Then I am happy I have good focus.

Very nice image and congratulations on getting it printed. 

Well done!

Dave

I would use a LP filter no matter what.

In PixInsight, if you have it, I would use Noise Reduction / SCNR ( Green) to reduce the green cast on the image. Not sure about PShotoshop.

Check the subs and remove any that don't have perfect round stars. Taking a closer look, I feel this image was taken on a windy night.

Dave

Could be seeing? Or wind? Or even, dare I say it, Collimation ?

They are not too bad looking at my image taken about a year ago.

Maybe the stars are just that large in that area of the sky.

Dave

iPlayer BBC1- Repair Shop Series 5 Episode 16- 7 minutes onwards.

I do like the Repair Shop TV program. I do sometimes wonder how much they charge for those repairs 😮 

No one ever appears to mention it....HOW £$£$£ MUCH!!!  😂

Saw a beauty meteor streak northwards on my left as I stepped out into the garden tonight. And within a few moments I found another one on my Laptop screen while platesolving a bit too close to the moon   

Thanks Mick.

Yes. the first (top) one is only 12 x 600s. Whereas the bottom one is same data as the top one but another 16 x 600s. A total of 28 x 600s subs. combined.

I read that there comes a point of little return and 30 subs is about it for CCD's so I think that bottom one, my M1 is done 

Very nice Moon. 

Good thing its not full as folks would start to wonder steppen  

I decided to process the subs I had collected. I used blink to remove 4 that had clouds. I set the PixInsight script WBPP to do its thing. It finished with 6 subs integrated. Not great when I started with 34 subs lol. So, I blink checked all 30 subs that had managed calibration and found 2 that didn't look good so removed. Than run the star alignment and finally integrated the 28 remaining subs. A gentle histogram stretch, curves and the minutest deconvolution, standard settings for ACDNR and finally SCNR Green to get this image. 

Taken over several nights in November. 

Atik 4120EX on a C11@2800mm, Mesu 200. Guiding using Lodestar X2 on ZWO AOG. PHD2, SGPro and PixInsight.

28 x 600s Lights

Master Darks/Bias/Flats.

Thanks for looking.