fireballxl5

Thanks all. First time I've used the Tak for planetary this season so a good reminder of its quality, which is often better than the conditions may suggest.

Jupiter was my target with a Great Red Spot, Io and Io Shadow transit in progress by the time the planet had cleared the observatory wall. Twenty-seven videos over 55 minutes processed to create this animation and de-rotated image centred on 18:25GMT. Tak TOA150B / ASI462MC / x2.5PM / IR-UVcut filter / 27x120s@3ms Seeing was worsening but the view through the eyepiece before fitting the camera was gorgeous 🙂 CS, Andy

Yes, thanks for the link though use of PHD2 would seem to rely on using a separate guide scope & camera. I was wondering if it was possible to guide the mount with controls from SharpCap's feature tracking function, which would be using measurements of planetary features from the imaging camera. Can the mount be guided from an external computer, such as a PC or ASIair?

I've been using my AZ100 / OMC300 combo to image Jupiter and although aligned so that Jupiter can be re-centered fairly reliably, the planet does drift out of the camera ROI quickly. I've mainly been addressing this by moving the ROI but wondered if this could be avoided by using the Feature Tracking function in SharpCap. Has anyone tried the Feature Tracking function to enable a motorised AZ100 automatically track Jupiter? I'm unable to use my scope currently to try this owing to a hand injury so any info confirming this would be appreciated. CS, Andy

I'm running Win10 on an unsupported machine. I don't really want to update to Win 11 as I assume I'd have to reinstall 9 years worth of apps🤔 Anyone know of a way to do the equivalent described in the video but for Win10? Is Win 10 still supported by MS? CS, Andy

Welcome Ben, Andy from Preston here🙂

I own an 80mm f/15 OTA made by Glen of Lyra Optics fame. This has a Carton objective and star images are text book perfect when the seeing allows. The views are great, you just want to go on finding colourful doubles on a good night🙂

I've had my RST-135E for 2 years now and although I've never dithered with this mount (at least during an imaging run🙃), I have found that this mount needs: 1) a good stable power supply, >12V. I usually dedicate a small Tracer LiFePO4 battery just for the mount 2) a rock steady base if imaging at high ish resolution, say <1.5"/pix. I've found that light-weight, collapsible ali tripods aren't solid enough if the mount is carrying 8-9kg of imaging gear (without a CW of course😉) and there is some movement. These are the kind of tripods I've taken abroad for less demanding imaging. For my RC6/ASI533 combo I now use a re-purposed AstroTrac pier that has very little movement as the scope tracks across the sky. It would be nice to have a more manageable carbon fibre tripod if I could be sure it was sufficiently stable. HTH, Andy

PS probably worthwhile mentioning that I used the new PI toolbox version of GraXpert to remove minor background gradients on this image. Although nothing significant, the result was noticeably better than DBE, though I'm certainly no expert with DBE🙃 Requires installation of GraXpert and the PI toolbox script https://github.com/Steffenhir/GraXpert/releases

M1 the Crab Nebula captured on Friday evening, 10th Nov. No Moon about but thought that I'd use a dual band filter after completing a set on the Crescent, posted previously and collected 2h40m of five minute subs. With the Hydrogen Alpha used for red and Oxygen III used for blue I used a combination of both NB channels to create green. This was then combined to create an RGB image, tweaked to give this gold/green mix. All processing within PixInsight. RC6 / ASI533MC Pro / IDAS NBZ / 28x300s (2h40m)

A break in the clouds on Friday the 10th Nov allowed me to capture a second batch of subs on NGC6888 the Crescent Nebula which seems sufficient to produce an image worth processing. Just waiting for the Wolf-Rayet star driving the emission to go super nova, likely before the next clear spell...😜 RC6 / ASI533MC / IDAS NBZ / 32x300s (2h40m) CS, Andy

Here are a couple of animations pulled out of some mushy data and a de-rotation of the later videos, after the seeing had improved slightly (with Europa to the side). OMC300 / ASI462MC / ADC / UVIRcut filter Animation #1; 2ms x 120s x 12 Animation #2; 3ms x 120s x 7 --> these went into the de-rotated image CS, Andy

No chance for the partial lunar eclipse here last night owing to rain so I got on with processing my Jupiter - GRS - Europa/shadow transit captures from late Friday night... I was caught out by earlier cloud so missed the start of the event, with further delay as the scope needed some collimation TLC. Conditions were so-so, with intermittent cloud but seeing visually was reasonably good. Captured twenty-three 2-minute videos over 45 minutes which have been used to create the animated GIF and also the de-rotated image, processed using a combination of AS!3, AstroSurface, WaveSharp and WinJupos. Before the clouds came fully back I managed a single capture using an Astronomik ProPlanet 642 IR-pass filter. Also had time for some eye-ball views through my SM125ED refractor @ 195x mag, which were stunning🙂 OMC300 / ASI462MC / ADC / UV-IR filter / 5ms / best 25% of approx 17,000 frames per video. Tracking ALT-AZ mount so some field rotation present in the video. CS, Andy

Caught some on Sunday evening as I was setting up my scope at approx 19:50. Had my phone so grabbed some handheld stills and created this animation.

Oh yes you can! - great image CS, Andy

Early Sunday morning (10th Sept) observing and imaging the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. Seeing was excellent with some memorable views through the eyepiece using my 5" SM125 refractor and 12" OMC300 Mak-Cass scopes. Images obtained using the 12" MC and processed to create a couple of stills. OMC300 / ASI462MC / ZWO ADC / Baader UV-IRcut Jupiter 3ms / Saturn 15ms, Jupiter 6x2min de-rotated. CS, Andy

Although I'm lucky and my SM125 is not affected, I'd like to know which polish is recommended should maintenance be required in the future. Not that I abuse my scopes lol, accidents do happen when you're tired early in the morning🙃

Nice detail Mike. I also had good views of Saturn last night, not so far away from yourself in Preston using my SM125. CS, Andy

The FS60CB and its extender make a great portable rig for solar eclipses...

I used Cuiv's guide to install the CUDA bits & pieces for GPU acceleration. This works under Win10 Pro with a GTX980 here. Ten-fold speed improvement for the one comparison test I ran when 1st installed👍I'm easily convinced lol

A brief chance to use the scope last night before the cloud rolled in and it gave some pleasant views of Saturn low in the SE at around midnight. I managed to capture some video and produce this image. A little noisy, though not surprising given the planet's low 20 degree altitude. SM125 / TV PM2.5 / UVIR-cut / ADC / ASI462MC Best 75% of 6000 3ms subs

After "first sunlight" yesterday afternoon the skies stayed clear for a regular first light last night. I had time for a reasonable session, selecting mainly binaries, but also M13, M92, M27 and M57. The DSOs were a challenge owing to lack of proper darkness here at 53°N so the binaries really showed off the performance of the scope. Using a TV 3-6mm zoom, stars were tight balls of light with nicely formed diffraction rings. Star colours were obvious and reminded me why I prefer visual observation with a refractor🙂 The colours in Almach and Albireo in particular were rich and bright. Lots of others gave similarly fine views. Excellent scope, I'll be keeping mine👍 CS, Andy

Received mine today after ordering on Friday afternoon. Close inspection found some glue on the tube from the felt liner on the rings after fitting and adjusting the rings, nothing major. Quick look at the Sun and very impressed by the view, showing fine surface detail and nicely resolved sunspots. Will check nighttime performance over coming weeks. Looking good so far👍

14 hours ago, GTom said: Can't find many other 12-13Ah (150Wh) LiFePO4 units. They fall outside your range so don't maximise the allowance or exceed it, but I've been using the 7Ah and 16Ah models of this Tracer battery for 5+ years now. They've given excellent performance with a range of astro gear. I've also taken the 7Ah unit on flights a number of times without issue. When I bought the 7Ah airline allowance was only 100Wh. https://tracerpower.com/products/batteries/tracer-12v-16ah-lifepo4-battery-pack/

Milky Way as seen from Rhossili beach last Wednesday evening, looking out over the Worm's Head. Canon 6D @ ISO6400 / Samyang 14mm @ f2.8 / fixed tripod / 180x20s (total elapsed time approx 1h10m)