fireballxl5

9 hours ago, neil phillips said:

6" Refractor looks good. Good colour correction looks excellent. Can't be an achromat?

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

12 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

Ooh this scope is interesting, it seems to be chrome or something shiny!

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🙃

9 minutes ago, Telescope40 said:

Thank you @fireballxl5  makes the process that bit more simple - always good in my case 🤣🤣🤣

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

1 hour ago, Telescope40 said:

point the OTA vertically as part of the alignment process

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

6 hours ago, geoflewis said:

Nice captures Andy, lots of detail on show.

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

5 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

As far as I know 6" RC can use up to APS-C sized sensor or about 30mm of corrected circle?

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

11 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

Will have a look at the ASI version, I have Avis, but it does not debayer…👍🏼

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?

7 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

do give StarNet v2 a go. I think it will be useful for this image.

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. 

14 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

I think that you maybe made target too bright.

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. 

Couldn't waste an opportunity to capture M16, the Eagle Nebula on Wednesday evening, 1st June. Just 40 minutes exposure (20x120s) with some heavy processing gives this image of the open star cluster and the central region of the nebula, including the famous Pillars of Creation. Still fairly noisy but the window of opportunity is short from my back garden, with the object's low altitude (~22 degrees) & my local horizon. Looks like my RC6 needs some collimation magic to improve star shapes if anyone can offer advice for this😉

CS, Andy