fireballxl5

First Light so to speak using my newly motorised AZ100 list night was a brief viewing of Jupiter in murky skies. All using a Lyra Optics 80mm/f15 refractor with an 8mm eyepiece giving a mag of 150x. Some initial observations are as follows. 1. Polar alignment using the built-in utility seems to work well enough, at least for good tracking performance. Also tried some random go-tos and these seemed to be reasonably accurate at this power/fov, but with some requiring sight re-centreing. 2. Goto is smooth and quiet, as is tracking at 150x. 3. I didn't figure out how to manually override the motors, as when I first tried to operate the slow motion controls it just seemed that the belt was riding over the pulley teeth. Maybe the clutches need to be loosened for this to work? In the end I just disabled the motors in the Rowan app before manually moving the scope. This was a pain tbh, especially using Sky Safari on the same device (my phone). I also tried using the virtual joystick but this wasn't so intuitive either or easy to get the desired motion or speed. 4. Use/control using Sky Safari with the goto is ace🙂 On the whole very impressed with the hardware performance, just some learning required on the operation side. CS, Andy Mount in action...

Thanks Neil. It's a Tak TOA150B, very nice scope🙂

Is this against the rules lol! A daytime shot of the Lyra Optics 80mm f15 Carton objective 😜 refractor, though on a skytee 2 mount, doubled up with my Borg 101ED for some solar observing. There's something special about seeing defraction rings around the moons of Jupiter🙃

A brief session observing big J using my Lyra 80mm f15 scope with 8mm Delos on my newly motorised AZ100. Great🙂

Upgrade fitted and seemingly working well indoors only as the clouds have rolled in now. Installation took me around 1 hour using Derek's video. Setup a new scope preset in sky safari 7 and goto appears to function properly. It's very smooth and quiet - excellent quality all round. Looking forward to trying it in anger 🔭 Great job Team Rowan👍

It's arrived, well packaged. I'll go watch the installation video again...

Delivery expected tomorrow😁

Lovely image Alan. Which camera do you use? Regards, Andy

NBZ/OSC doesn't look that bad! I'd use it with the Moon, and do🙃

Well my memory can't be that bad as it's stated in the Q&A... What is the quick start mode. A. Quick start is where you set the OTA level and pointing south (or reference point) this provides a very quick ‘alignment’ sufficient for the mount to calculate the tracking rates when you are push to observing. See http://www.rowanastronomy.com/productsa9.htm CS, Andy

I'm sure that I was told you just point the horizontal scope south and then at a couple of alignment stars when I enquired at IAS last month

Thanks Geof🙂 I'm really liking this kit combination for planetary imaging. These are based on best 10% of 30,000 3ms frames. I really want to make the next step and learn how to derotate longer sequences.

Jupiter imaged last night, three shots taken over 1.25 hours. Seeing improving until the thicker cloud arrived. 6" refractor, 462MC with IR/UV filter, x2.5PM Processed using AS3, RS6 and DxO PL4 CS, Andy

not from my experience using RC6 with ASI071 (APS-C size), which requires a flattener. Supplier recommended 4/3 sensor as max suitable for this scope (StellaLyra).

My best images of Jupiter captured around midnight on Saturday night, showing Europa both in transit and off to the right. Io off to right on 1st shot. Best 12.5% of 20,000 frames captured at 115fps (3ms exposures). Processed using PIPP, AS!3, RegiStax6 and DxO. Kit: Tak TOA-150B / 2x Meade Barlow / ASI462MC / UVIR cut filter CS, Andy

all good stuff @vlaiv - thanks! I had struggled trying to get to grips with WinJUPOS in previous years thinking that videos as long as 2 minutes may benefit from de-rotation, but this is clearly unnecessary. and one of my images from last night, improved by advice given by yourself in another recent post, mainly by using short exposures (3ms here) and stacking the best 12.5% of 20,000 frames (@115fps over ~3 minutes).

My first attempt at hunting the Lion nebula during the clear spell at the tail end of August. This NB image comprises 37x300s (3h05m) captured using my Borg 101ED refractor / ASI071MC Pro combo, with IDAS NBZ filter. Processed using PI in a similar way to my previous Cygnus Wall image, bringing out some stronger colours than are often seen. Quite surprised at the level of signal in both Ha and OIII. CS, Andy

The 'Cygnus Wall' captured here as a dual-scope experiment using my 18-year old Borg 101ED f6.4 refractor on 27th Aug. ASI071MC Pro with IDAS NBZ dual-band filter on the Borg used to capture 33x300s (2h45m) subs, teamed up with a 60mm refractor/ASI533 for some RGB stars. CS, Andy

I found the ASI FITS viewer SW by selecting a FITS file in Window File Explorer and then opening with "Choose another app..." which offered ASIFitsView. So if ASIStudio is already installed then the viewer is likely there.

ASIFitsView will open / display FITS images. I think it is part of the ASIStudio package for use with ZWO cameras, so just a download from Software and Drivers | ZWO ASI (astronomy-imaging-camera.com) A search also finds AvisFV FITS Viewer which looks useful. HTH Andy

@vlaiv that looks like cool and interesting software, thanks for the YT link. Do you know of any apps that have utilised OpenCV to drive an astro mount for either daytime or nighttime applications?

I used Starnet2 to extract the nebula and StarXterminator for the stars - I've found that StarNet2 can give pixelated/poor stars, at least when working with binned data. On your advice I've started not to bin my subs and so this may no longer be necessary. As is commonly known, separating allows me to more easily control and de-emphasise the stars. Hopefully when my star shapes are sorted I can ease off the heavy processing.

Spot on @vlaiv, maybe I was a little over zealous using the GHS script after watching the YouTube tutorial 🙃 but I wanted focus on the nebula to distract from the poor stars. Also, I'm a sucker for strong colours. I've spent some time this afternoon optimising my scope configuration including install of motorised focuser and checked/adjusted the backspace from the flattener so will try harder for a more realistic look next time🙂 Thanks for the feedback👍

M57, the Ring Nebula, many observer's favourite Planetary? Captured on Wed 1st June after M16 had gone from view. 48x120s using the RC6/ASI533MCP with IDAS D2 LPF. Processed in PI, with close-up shown. CS, Andy

Impressive image, particularly the background sky as I often struggle with this. I've been a convert to StarX and now NoiseX for a couple of image processes now and so very much convinced. One thing I've found though is that sometimes the output stars from StarX have poor cores, they seem to be pixelated or similar. So I now use StarX to extract the main target, galaxy / nebula, and Starnet2 for the stars when this arises. Use the best tool for the job, as they say.