fireballxl5

Yes, just opened but no tablets. Looks like I'll be adopting your process, thanks👍

Nice call Alan, that could be the cause. The camera was cooled indoors for the flats. I'll check the desiccant tablets and retry the flats.

Hi SGL'ers, I celebrated first light with my newly acquired Samyang 135mm lens at the weekend using my ASI071MC Pro OSC camera. There is also an IDAS D2 LPR filter in line and I tried shooting at f/2 to see how the lens coped. So, I managed to get lots of subs which I've been processing this week using darks, bias and flats as I would my mono CCD/refractors. The problem seems to be the flats, which have a strong wave-like variation across the frame, most noticeable in the corners - see extracts below, stretched for effect. The first shows the flat. The second is a corrected stack (flats, darks & bias). Finally, the partially corrected stack (darks and bias only). I've tried using 3 different light panels for the flats with the same result. I've even rotated the panel above the lens whilst continuously taking images (flats) and the pattern remains stationary, implying that it's the camera, lens or filter. Thing is, the raw, unprocessed subs don't have the variation suggesting the these components and combination are ok. What do you think that this could be due to? The filter, the fast aperture, but why only when taking flats? I know that some NB filters do not work well below f/3 or f/4, so could it be related to this? Any help or advice would be very much appreciated🙂 FLAT: STACK - CORRECTED WITH FLATS: STACK - NO FLATS: CS, Andy

UKAB&S My mount can't handle two 6" f7 ish refractors, otherwise...

looks superb Steve

I'm a long time user of SkyMap (on floppy disc) and then SkyMap Pro (USB stick nowadays). In the Nineties before I had GoTo or when travelling before smartphone's it was great for planning and the accurate printed star maps it could generate. I still use it as my Windows planetarium software (big fan of Sky Safari on the phone/tablet though). Chris did say that he wouldn't be developing the software some time ago for personal reasons and then it was announced earlier in the week that the last USB stick of v12 had been sold and so that would seem to be it☹️ You can find some details on the SkyMap Google group if needed. https://groups.io/g/skymap/topic/skymap12_remainders_expired/77296160?p=,,,20,0,0,0::recentpostdate%2Fsticky,,,20,2,0,77296160 PS link may not be open access.

I've used Gill's sailing gloves for some time now, these are what I currently have. They may not seem to be particularly warm but do the job for me. https://gb.gillmarine.com/championship-gloves-l-f-1-1/

Thanks Alan, yes it's the southern polar cap.

No problem Mike, I love the comparison. Yours is a fantastic rendition of the view. I really like your sketch and I see how it matches my digital image, including some of the more delicate variation in the northern hemisphere. Very nice. For reference, my image was taken over a 3 minute period, starting at approx 23:40 BST. Regards, Andy

thanks very much Mike, I like to think that I processed the data to bring out the details that I saw visually just before fitting the camera. The scope is a TOA-150B, a very fine telescope. Regards, Andy

Mars imaged yesterday evening using my Tak 150mm refractor with ASI224MC and 3x Barlow lens (approx 3.3m focal length). Best 50% of 3000 frames. Processed using PIPP, AS!3, RS6 and DxO PhotoLab3. The views through the eyepiece at 272x were sooooo good😁 CS, Andy

I dropped Diffraction Limited an email and someone's going to provide some feedback on the benefits for my usage. I'm assuming image acquisition, focusing & guiding will be synchronised. I currently use PHD2 for guiding and focus manually through MaxIm Observatory dialog. I wasted too much time playing and failing with the built-in tools years ago. I do like the SW interface and its reliability for camera and mount control in all other respects.

Just seen the new multi-camera support offered for MaxImDL, with Maestro https://diffractionlimited.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Diffraction-MaxIm-DL-Maestro-Brochure.pdf As a long term user of MaxIm running a dual-scope rig (currently as 2 separate instances on my 11-year old laptop), I'm interested in seeing feedback on this if anyone knows of it. CS, Andy

wow, that looks great, I really like it, especially as I've just started a run collecting the final OIII subs for my image of this target. Coincidentally, I have almost the same field of view. Here's a test stack of the first 6x600s Ha subs from mid-June... Love the colours in your image btw.

Hi there, I'm working on setting up an EEVA rig based on an Astroberry powered RPi with Made DSI camera. This is ultimately for the local astro society's public outreach events when allowed to do these again. Currently I can remotely control the RPi using my Android tablet to see the live images from the camera using oaCapture over VNC. What I'm looking to do now is live stream this image/window to the interweb from the RPi, tablet or a Windows laptop. What's the best way to do this? Options I can think of include YouTube and FB, but are there better ways to do this, making the video feed accessable to society/public? In any case how would I do this through YouTube/FB? Maybe this is already baked into Astroberry and I am unaware of this? Any help would be greatly appreciated 🙂 CS, Andy

focus doesn't look bob on to me tbh - always tricky with wide-angle lens mind

Love the colours in this picture. I've started using my unmodified 6D Mk1 for imaging (using camera lenses though) this summer and been surprised by its sensitivity, especially to Ha.

The StarNet process in PI (for star removal or creation of star masks) can configured to use nVidia GPUs, reportedly making a significant improvement is speed - see https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-speed-up-starnet-as-pi-module-on-nvidia-gpus-with-cuda-on-windows.14882/

there's already talk on SGL about the Star Adventurer Mark 2 being tested down under...

As I noticed after download of the first OIII sub in Saturday morning! Thanks for the good wishes👍

Great image and I really like the colours as well. Good to see your picture now as this is my current imaging project, started mid June but only 4 hours Ha / 1 hour OIII so far.

Sorry, but I wasn't referring to your post Dave. I understood your use of the term "135 format" thanks. BTW, I think that it's fair to use the common term "full-frame" in an astro imaging forum, with a reasonable expectation that it will be interpreted as intended. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/135_film

I think that the OP is referring to the CFF 135 refractor...http://www.cfftelescopes.eu/product/refractor-135-mm-f6 PS, I'm considering purchase of a Samyang 135mm f2 lens to use with my Canon 6D Mk1. Is this lens good for a full-frame DSLR? CS, Andy

Same experience with Team Viewer here. Good alternatives I've tried are TightVNC and Microsoft Remote Desktop, the latter I use on my android tablet to monitor & control my Win7 laptop in the shed.

Philips Toucam 740k vs ASI224MC, both on a 150mm f7.3 APO refractor with 3x Barlow from 2017...