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Plodder

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Everything posted by Plodder

  1. Witches Broom in RGB-Ha & O111: About 8 hours total, 14.5" Newt on a Paramount ME imageds with a G4-16000 Camera with Astrodon and Chroma filters.
  2. Crescent Nebula 6 hours of RGB+Ha + O111 Equipment: 14.5" Newt, G4-16000, Paramount ME, Astrodon & Chroma filters.
  3. It's very nice, well done. There is a slight blue gradient though easily removed in PI.
  4. Quite often a diagonal shot on this one gets the running man in as well, keep the interest going, well done.
  5. This pair are always a difficult, the background would benefit from SCNR as it is very green, a good mask and a background desaturation would make a big difference. Very nice otherwise.
  6. Always nice to see this FOV and the small galaxies of which there are plenty, very nice.
  7. Thank you Trailer Trash but none of us starts off with the right kit or the skills, it takes years if not decades, stick in there. Anyway I thought some might be interested in the crop of the lower arm and the rings of Ha which are very prominent, the more you look the more rings you see, small and large.
  8. Thank you for the encouraging comments, and no I don't live on the far side of the Moon though my wife might disagree. In truth I I've never tried 900 sec subs but trying to get any definition in the arms of M33 is a nightmare. However processed in PI it has turned out OK. The well depth of the KAF-16803 is superb, no noise reduction was carried out Here is an RGB sub screenshot sample.
  9. Latest attempt on this the most difficult of targets. ~2 hours a channel, RGB 600 & 900 & Ha 1200 sec subs, 14.5" f3.8 Newt, G4-16000, Paramount ME.
  10. Could you perhaps explain your thinking and the relevance to Sky Glow suppression?
  11. I'm certain many who have imaged M33 will have struggled to get decent arms in the galaxy and I regard it as my nemesis. Previous attempts have been hours of RGB data accumulated but never quite got there to my satisfaction even with my 14.5" f3.78 Newt. I recall from many years past Jerry Lodrigus and Ron Wodaski extolling the virtues of leaving an IDAS filter in place even in a dark sky site as it cuts out sky glow etc but I've never been brave enough to try it with the few clear nights we get here in Central Scotland. My usual RGB sub length is 8 or 10 mins and that's about as far as I can push it. Anyway after waiting for a hole in the clouds for months I got 45 mins per RGB channel { 3 x 15min subs } with the IDAS filter in place. I was pleasantly surprised how it turned out given the lack of data. No noise reduction was done and processed in PI. Here's the link to Jerry's site if anyone is interested. https://www.astropix.com/html/i_astrop/filters.html Graham.
  12. One of the frustrations in trying to remotely operate the Observatory at the bottom of the garden is turning things on and off and trying to adjust the brightness of the Light Box for flat fields. A couple of years ago I decided to knock up an Arduino based relay controller using a Arduino Mega 2560 and one of those cheap 8 channel relay module boards from Ebay. The windows user interface is coded from Virtual Studio 2017 would run on the Observatory PC and TeamViewer used to control things from the house. Illuminated On & Off buttons controlled the 8 relays and a sliding Track Bar adjusted the 12v light box via a Mosfet. The Arduino unit had it's own power supply and the USB +5v to the unit was cut. One big problem with this type of setup is if the PC has to be rebooted is that we lose the interface, however in this unit there is a Recovery Button {Bottom Right} that restores the status quo once the PC has been rebooted and the interface re-acquired. If the power to the controller is lost the greyed out the Kill and Exit button illuminates which has not happened yet. I have an Activity Log window to show what's happening and the image below shows the recovery of channels 1,3,5 & 6 after a PC reboot. Note: because the Arduino Unit stays powered during the reboot the relays remain operated so it's just the interface lamps and button status that need restoring which the recovery button does. The trackbar shows 0->100 in a window above the Trackbar which is 0-5v in real terms so a multiplication constant is need in the Arduino code. That voltage is shown as PWM volts in the bottom corner. The Trackbar and voltage setting I record to get the right Adu's for my Flat Frames. When a command is sent, the Arduino must respond with the correct code to change the status. The Trackbar is grabbed with the mouse and dragged to the desired position. It has made my life so much easier and I now wonder how I managed without it. OOps ... can someone move this to the DIY section Graham.
  13. Thank you for the comments, I print all my images on a Canon Pro-10 Printer and the best outcome is achieved when the image is slightly brighter to start with. For some reason Astro images don't print as well as daytime shots as the fainter detail seems to get lost. Wonder if anyone else has found this to be the case. Graham.
  14. Hi All, The recent clear spell of two Moonless nights allowed 2 hours per channel RGB on M33. M33 for anyone who has tried it will know just how faint the arms are. Imaged on 14.5" Newt, MI G4 Camera and Astrodon filters. Graham.
  15. Yes, It could be considered an expensive upgrade or a cheap one depending on your outlook and circumstances. The original MKS4000 build had parallel and serial ports wired through the mount and the upgrade removes all this providing USB ports instead. The servo motor control is now completely silent and removes the whining noise albeit a minor but pleasant feature. In truth my stars can't be any rounder than before so the upgrade is one of personal choice and probably best judged by Paramount ME MKS4000 owners. If I was being critical I would say The SkyX should have been included in the cost however it's likely the small number of upgrade units Software Bisque would need to produce to offer this upgrade would keep the cost high. Graham.
  16. Hi All, Having had the Paramount ME for many years I thought I'd give it a facelift and bring it up to the latest spec by upgrading the mount to MKS5000. This is achieved by a kit from Software Bisque available either direct or via a Dealer, I chose Ian King even although Baader are the sole European dealers so it comes via them anyway. I looked at the option of ordering direct from Bisque but the price seemed cheaper ordering from Ian King and in any case it was £1568 delivered. The order took around 3 weeks with Bisque requesting the index values of the motors which they then store on the new board making installation easier. You can't fault Software Bisque's attention to absolute quality of their stuff and the upgrade kit is no exception. The new MKS5000 requires The SkyX thus retiring The Sky6 and this was also done but not included in the upgrade price. There is a good installation procedure but I'd add the removal of the Versa plate is essential though I never saw it mentioned for removal in the guide. For anyone not acquainted with circuit boards attempting this upgrade I'd recommend familiarising themselves with the plugs on the old board as to how they are disconnected and subsequently reconnected but the process is fairly straight forward. A good set of imperial Allen Keys is also recommended as some of the screws of which must tally around 50 that have to be removed some of which are fairly tight. Don't yank at them but slow steady increasing pressure until the bond breaks is my advice. I took the opportunity to run some new cabling through the mount which means not a single trailing cable any more making the strip down worthwhile in itself. The upgrade kit can be found here: http://www.bisque.com/sc/shops/store/MKS500Upgrade.aspx And finally, Do I think the upgrade was worth it, yes definitely. I also took the opportunity to add my own connections and this extra box (Lower) can be see seen in the image attached. Graham.
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