Star101

It took me a while to work out what the issue was. I have had a few late nights but easy days as it was a weekend. Last night, I looked up, the sky looked fairly clear but my subs looked very dim. Even at 10 minutes. subs. So, I parked the scope up. Removed the camera and filter. Everything looked OK there. Looked at the corrector plate ( that's the front end or the C11 ) Boy was it dirty! Not sure if someone had lit a smokey fire during the previous night or something. Looking further inside, I could see the primary mirror looking dull and dusty too. So, decided I would strip the scope down and clean it up the first chance I get! The forecast for tonight was not so great. It was a busy day at work but in my way home I called at the shops and got a bag of pure cotton balls and de-ionised water. I have read lots and watched many videos on how to clean a SCT scope. My preferred method is to mark up and remove the corrector plate. Have the scope pointing slightly downwards so water falls out and not in Set about with wet, soggy, cotton balls and clean the primary mirror. Dab it dry with new cotton balls and then finish off with a cool hairdryer. I washed the mirror and dried it. Cleaned the corrector plate, both sides. Put everything back together being careful not to disturb Bobs Knobs ( Oh Er!! ) . Tested the scope in the amazing clear skies I had for 20 minutes (edit!.. or was it that I had just cleaned the scope !! ), lol. Did a de-focus test to check collimation and WOW! I could not have gotten a better circular doughnut if I tried. A great success. And all under two hours work ...Including a perfectly timed stop for tea So....whens the next clear sky forecast ? Dave

If I take my NEQ6 and scope somewhere there is no mains power. I take my Ring 12v 17Ah 2.0L Engine Power Pack with Inverter. I has USB, 12V cig socket and 3 pin 240V AC socket. So I can plug most things into it. It generally lasts me with my NEQ6, Cameras and laptop about 6 hours. Long enough for most sessions. I actually used it to help start a Hybrid car last weekend too That was interesting in itself ( Youtube is a godsend lol

I decided to go back and reprocess this image as I too was intrigued by the colour. I found that using the STF drag to HTF in Pixinsight can reduce the colour in some images. So I went back to my old method of manually adjusting the Histogram. Adjusting separately the RGB, to align each peak to the others. Stretched and Noise reduced. Colour enhanced. AutomaticBackgroundExtractor applied. Here is the resulting image. Thanks for looking.

The whiteness is a combination of the camera and my processing. Stretching the image too much can and will reduce the colour of somethings and make them whiter than they are. Bleaching the colour sometimes. I have another camera that gives different colours again. Also, it has been shown several times recently that if you give 10 people the same image data to process then you will get 10 different coloured and contrasting images. I tend to prefer a brighter background than some others. I can make the background darker to make the image prettier but I do prefer detail and not so much aesthetics Christophe has posted the info on the other galaxies and artifact on his M97 here

The wonderful weekend continues .......................................................................................................................................................................................... From WiKi - The Owl Nebula (also known as Messier 97, M97 or NGC 3587) is a planetary nebula located approximately 2,030 light years away in the constellation Ursa Major.[2] It was discovered by French astronomer Pierre Méchain on February 16, 1781.When William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, observed the nebula in 1848, his hand-drawn illustration resembled an owl's head. It has been known as the Owl Nebula ever since. The nebula is approximately 8,000 years old. It is approximately circular in cross-section with a little visible internal structure. It was formed from the outflow of material from the stellar wind of the central star as it evolved along the asymptotic giant branch. The nebula is arranged in three concentric shells, with the outermost shell being about 20–30% larger than the inner shell. The owl-like appearance of the nebula is the result of an inner shell that is not circularly symmetric, but instead forms a barrel-like structure aligned at an angle of 45° to the line of sight. The nebula holds about 0.13 solar masses of matter, including hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur; all with a density of less than 100 particles per cubic centimeter. Its outer radius is around 0.91 ly (0.28 pc) and it is expanding with velocities in the range of 27–39 km/s into the surrounding interstellar medium. The 14th magnitude central star has since reached the turning point of its evolution where it condenses to form a white dwarf. It has 55–60% of the Sun's mass, 41–148 times the brightness of the Sun, and an effective temperature of 123,000 K.The star has been successfully resolved by the Spitzer Space Telescope as a point source that does not show the infrared excess characteristic of a circumstellar disk. .................................................................................................................................................................................... This morning, around 01:30 I started imaging M97. I managed 14 x 600s and processed in Pixinsight. Equipment was C11 @2800mm, Atik 4120EX OSC, Lodestar X2 Guide Cam on ZWO OAG. All mounted on the Mesu 200. Thanks for looking.

On a budget route. Although maybe someone can advise on how good they are... Search for Quadband DSLR filter. Maybe its a short term solution before you spend too much!! This should give good results in light polluted areas.

A great clear, dark night, last night. After imaging Abell 262 and gathering more data for M1 again I turned to NGC 3189 and NGC 3187. Part of the Hickson 44 galaxy group. I took 5 x 300s before settling on 600s subs, of which I managed 20 more subs. I did a quick process to see how it would look. The data looks good, its my processing that requires more care Equipment - C11 @2800mm, Atik 4120EX OSC with IDAS LP filter. Lodestar X2 on ZWO OAG. All sat on a Mesu 200. Software -SGPro and PixInsight. Thanks for looking.

Can I suggest this as an idea? https://www.screwfix.com/p/tarpaulin-sheet-green-brown-4-x-5m/634gt £20 - 4 x 5 sq/m

Congratulations to all the winners. Some great images there. Well done.👍

Hubble public data Go to the site. Right down the bottom of page it says Enter Here...click that! Type in the Messier, Say, M1 or some other .... work it out from there. Enjoy

OUCH!!! Can you get it fixed/replaced ?

If the weather was clear skies 250 nights of the year it would be perfect in the Cairngorms National Park. Could you imagine imaging from 4pm until 7am during winter WOW!!!

Its a great idea and not so far to travel too. Fun to dream about. However, I'm sure there are a few sites in Spain/France etc, with many more clear night skies, that one can setup a remote Obsy, fly/drive back and forth from UK for a few years and still have change out of £700,000

I would try again when the seeing conditions improve. While waiting for the seeing to improve - Collimation is one thing to look at. Find a bright star first. Once happy it looks collimated. Try a dimmer star and check again. Also, check stars at the four corners of the image. Don't drive yourself crazy though lol. I do find my C11 is great for deep sky stuff but always find it does not show the contrast that my APO shows when imaging the moon. Good luck.

Great image Göran and nice processing too. I was hoping to use iTelescope to image some thing in the Southern Hemisphere this weekend due to the cloud cover here but so far have not decided on a target. I need to check out the Liverpool Telescope public data sometime.

If yours has Fastar (Hyperstar), the secondary mirror is removable. Have them remove it to check it is not stuck! While its out, check there are no marks on that mirror too.

Thanks for your informative review Matt. I have been subscribing to iTelescope for some time now on the lowest rate (£15/month?) Having my own setup in my ROR Shed, I don't use iTelescope much. However, with the cloud cover at the moment not showing any signs of lifting I will use iTelescope again these coming days. When I have used iTelescope in the past, any issues have been resolved very promptly with no problems getting anything sorted. TBH, I cant even remember what it was lol. I do like iTelescope. The variety and quality of the equipment at ones disposal. My last image of M16 was taken using a rig probably costing over £40k. Way beyond my size pockets. Value for money in my eyes And last of all....Chance of far battery skies and lower light pollution than my back yard

I used Gain 111 for this Lum

Very nice image. Thanks for sharing.

Looking good so far Rodd. Hope the weather picks up soon so you can continue. I looked forward to seeing this develop.

I was watching a interesting documentary on NETFLIX called "A Year In Antarctica". 2/3 into the film they show lots of night shots of the clear star filled sky. And yes, one can see many satellites passing over head as its the South Pole. But at one moment I see maybe 5 satellites passing VERY close to each other from different directions. I am aware of parallax and for 5 satellites, there's a lot of room. But there has to be some sort of limit to how many one can have flying around and not bumping into one another!! The last thing anyone wants is for satellite junk out of control. That would be very dangerous for future astronauts As well as messing up my imagining routine!!

You are welcome don41. Thanks, that's exactly why I posted. The ASI183MM Pro is a great camera. I overexposed on this so wanted to let others know/check. There are lots great galaxies to be seen here at the right focal length. Personally, I will be trying again at shorter exposures with my ASI183MM Pro. as and when we get clear skies and no moon lol.

Thanks for sharing Dave. I have not seen this yet. Looking at this GIF. Its not that easy to spot in action. The GIF does highlight it.

Taken 29 Sept, but only just got around to processing. Just a quick process at that. Looks to me that 120s exposure is too much for the camera using the ZWO ASI183mm Pro on the TS65Q as the center of the galaxies look a little blown out. But hey, I thought I would post anyway There's a lot of galaxies in there Next time I will use 60s...if we get clear skies again ! Thanks for looking. Dave 52 x 120s Lum ZWO ASI183mm Pro on a TS65Q @ 420mm scope. Mesu 200. PixInsight

A word of caution. The advert, as I read it, does not say if it has disks/SSD's or memory! It only states that it can accept them. You will have to add the disk and memory...adding to the cost. ..................If it does come with SDD/Disk and 4Gb or more memory then it looks OK....But check first!