Whistlin Bob

Exactly what I was thinking- beautiful shot.

Really nice report. If I can get to a dark site in decent weather I'd like to have a go at Triton. I spent a long time looking for ngc891 on Friday night and couldn't find it; I'm inspired to try again.

In some ways I've found that it improves my imaging. Once the rig is running I'm as likely to need it up as anything else!

Having been away with work and other commitment through several clear nights this week I was itching to get out last night and had the kit set up before it was properly dark. I set the cameras going for some imaging then concentrated on the visual with the 14” Dob and Baader Zoom. I didn’t really have a plan, but instead spent the time wandering through Sky Safari and just going for stuff that might be interesting. So… Double-double: This is a regular starting point for me- I align the Rigel and Finderscope on Vega then check out the double double to see what the seeing is like. It wasn’t the best and the sky was clearly a bit milky too, but even without the aperture mask there was clear separation on both pairs which augured well. M13: Just a short hop down and I almost go there out of habit. A nice view with good resolution into the core; couldn’t see the propeller though. Never quite sure whether it’s the conditions or me- but I can only see it about half the time. NGC7331 and Stephan’s Quintet: This was my first imaging target for the night and I wanted to see what I could get visually as well. NGC7331 is a nice target- quite easy to see the core, and then with a bit of time and some averted vision more of the shape becomes clear. I’ve had quite a few goes at this and always feel it’s right on the edge of my vision. I spent a long time on it last night- moving the scope, looking around the object, just relaxing and trying to let it float into view. There was definitely something there- a faint mottling of the sky. But not distinct. I have 2 dark sky trips coming up where, with a bit of luck with the weather, I’ll have more of a chance. It’ll be great to finally tick this one off. M15: It’s a couple of years since I put this one in the eyepiece and I’d forgotten what a wonderful target it is. To me the core seemed to appear slightly below centre (so I guess above centre as I’m using a Newt)- but I’m guessing that’s an effect of local atmosphere as it certainly doesn’t appear on any photos that I’ve checked online this morning. I also tried the Binoviewers; I’m a huge fan of globs in Binoviewers- they both seem to add an extra dimension and support seeing more detail in the object; but on this occasion it didn’t really seem to add anything. No worse, just no better either. M2: This was a nice view, but being a bit lower in the sky than M15 it was a bit murkier and harder to resolve, so suffered a bit by comparison. I probably did them in the wrong order! NGC891: In Sky Safari this looks reminiscent of the Needle Galaxy so I was keen to have a look, but I really couldn’t see anything at all. I spent a long time on this- trying averted vision, and then dropping the magnification right down with a 30mm eyepiece- but nothing at all. Then, as I had the 30mm in… M31/32/110: This I COULD see! Lovely to sit back on the chair and just drink it in. I find that it reveals itself in the same sequence each time. The core of M31 leaps out at you and then M32 is right there as well. Gradually some of the dark lanes appear and I then have to work a bit to get to M110. On really good nights I can see the edges spilling over the field of view, but the sky was too milky last night for that. It really is an awesome thing to contemplate: the light of a trillion stars travelling for millions of years and landing in my back garden. I hope it wasn’t too disappointed in the state of my lawn. Caroline’s Rose: Next, and with the low power still in, I wandered up to Cassiopeia. I could see the dark lanes in this open cluster; I sort of get it as a rose but it doesn’t quite leap out and grab me. M52: I much prefer this open cluster- not really sure why. The odd brighter star (not sure if it’s foreground) reminds me a bit of the Wild Duck Cluster- a pleasure to look at. I went back to the Baader zoom and quickly dropped back down to 8mm for the best view. Blue Snowball Nebula – I love the colour of this, it’s great to have something that’s not grey. I can never make out any details on this, but I always enjoy the blinky thing that PNs do. This inspired me to jump across to… Blinking Planetary Nebula- which always sounds like an exclamation to me. Strangely it didn’t blink as much for me as the Blue Snowball. M57 – The Ring nebula. Always a favourite; I decided to try some filters and also the BV’s on this. In the end reached the conclusion that it’s bright enough that none of these approaches really added anything. In the Baader, at 8mm/206x it’s a lovely view with a darker section (although the central star was beyond me last night) in the middle and variations in shading around the ring. Always good to experiment, but in this case the simple view is the best for me. M27- The Dumbell. In this case it really was worth experimenting. In the zoom it’s only a faint wispy thing at any magnification, and only really the apple core shape is visible. Dropping to the 30mm and it appears much more strongly, standing out a little against the star field. Popping the Baader back in with the UHC filter on it made it stand out a little further against the background, although at the expense of a little detail. Putting the Oiii filter on- turbo charged this effect: in monochrome green the full extent of the object was visible against the pitch background, there was a lot of shape as well, although it was quite blurry and you could only really focus by sidestepping to a nearby star. M71 – Nice, but quite faint and small compared with the other globs in the session. The Moon was up now and bed was calling, but like a kid left alone with the biscuit tin I was unable to resist a few more targets. The moon itself was in a really wobbly bit of the sky so I didn’t spend too much time on that, and switched back up to Cepheus. The Garnet Star- always a beauty, nice and sharp with the aperture mask on it! Delta Cepheus – A nice easy split; and almost Albireo like with the contrasting colours. Kemble’s Cascade – Too bright to find in the moonlight; no stars to hop from. Double Cluster – A wonderful place to finish!

I think that's the nail on the head right there. I genuinely love both practices, but when I show people my pictures I get a genuine 'Wow!'- people are really interested. When I tell people that I spend my time looking for fuzzy gray shapes in the sky that's not a typical response... On the other hand I reflect on last night: I spent an hour setting the imaging rigs going and by that point I was feeling grouchy and hassled. Then I started with the dob- it was a great session. The stress of the week faded and the peace and tranquility was immense. I'm excited to see what my cameras got last night- but even if it turns out to be 'not much' then it was still a great night. But I can't easily share it. Although- you've just made my mind up: I will write an observing report later!

Sure- it's 14 inches.

Another note of thanks for this thread. I read it some weeks ago and downloaded the handy picture, then spent a very enjoyable half hour just wandering about the object with my dob and a 30mm eyepiece with an Oiii filter. Without the filter it's almost invisible, with it the major sections are very easy. A real pleasure.

Wow- this is just awesome!

@elliot I think that makes a lot of sense. I had similar problems with a camera not really picking up nebulae and bought a 600d from Camera Jungle and had it modded. All in cost was about £235. I'm pretty happy with the performance. This is my NAN using a vintage Russian 135mn lens on a test of my relatively new SA with 90 second subs at iso800. I think it could be quite a lot better with longer subs and more of 'em! Likewise I suspect this would help address your other problems as well 👍

I'm another 8 inch Dob fan- bought one 5 years ago, it completely sucked me into astronomy and I still use it very regularly, despite having bought a number of other scopes since. The one thing I'd flag is that they're physically quite big- assembled it's about the size of a dining chair. But for the money for visual astronomy they're just about unbeatable.

Idly wandering through observing reports tonight and wishing it was clear when I came across this thread. I thought hang on- a few nights ago I was doing some wide field imaging whilst observing and caught this one 😁:

Mikey- I can appreciate that you might want to keep things nice and simple, and guiding is both another level of complexity and cost to your AP. For me, though, it made an enormous difference to my imaging. My kit (130pds f4.5, HEQ5, mod'ed 600d) is pretty close to yours and I was losing around 10-20% of frames (so, roughly in-line with @vlaiv's excellent model) and realistically could never go above 2 minutes. I went for a very basic guiding solution (2nd hand 9x50 guide scope, finder guider adaptor, 2nd hand ASI224 camera which doubles up as an excellent planetary camera, free PHD2 software). You'll need a laptop with you and it generally adds a few minutes to the setup after frame and focusing to put the guide camera on and focus, but it'll move you forwards quite a long way: not only was I no longer losing frames, but the ones I was keeping were better and sharper Cost wise, it was about £220 all in, although I have some friends who have picked up generic guiding cameras from ebay for around £80 so it can be done more cheaply than I did it.

Hi- I'm running PI on a 2nd hand laptop that's no great shakes in terms of spec. A couple of times I've used the PI stacking and calibration processes and it has taken ages, not just to stack the pictures but to run through all of the processes and set all the parameters etc etc. Despite this investment of time the output was never vastly better than what I can get from DSS. I umm'ed and arrr'ed about hardware but eventually decided to carry on using DSS and save PI for the post processing (for which I find it fantastic) because life's too short. Your mileage may vary, as they say (and I'd be interested to know if others can get something markedly better from doing their initial processing in PI), but if I had a few astro pounds to spare they wouldn't be going on processors and motherboards!

Looking at these wonderful setups I almost feel like I'm neglecting mine! Mine is not lagged and is guided with a 9x50 finder mounted in the normal shoe with a finder guider adaptor on it. Works a treat, though now I'm wondering if lagging would bring some improvements! 🤔

Looking at your 'victories' (I get the same feeling when an astro photo goes well) I think you'll do great with a 130pds and some of @RolandKol's advice. Please be sure to share your results with us! On the subject of collimating the secondary, at least for the first time, it's worth using a Cheshire instead of a laser. The other key advice is try to be relatively delicate when you adjust it- my problems with this process used to arise from being heavy handed and over tightening. Also- sorry to wander off topic, but how do you get on with the SW AZ mount and the 127? I've been trying to use one for some short exposure (to manage field rotation) DSLR work and it struggles to hold images centrally for very long.. Do you get the same problem?

A touch of lurgy at the moment has given me an opportunity to catch up on some imaging processing. The cone was the trickier of this pair- it’s much less bright and because there’s lots of gas around it, finding some background to calibrate on was not easy. Also, in my efforts to strip light pollution (both moon and LED) from the RGB subs I’ve removed any Oiii signal which I know is present somewhere in this! California was easier as it has higher surface brightness. Cone: 14/2/19: Ha – 14x 10 min subs (yes- my wife is very understanding) 21/2/19: RGB – 40x 2.5mins subs California: 14/2/19: Ha – 14x 10 mins subs 9/1/19: RGB – 12x 5 mins subs

It's hard going out in the cold sometimes- especially if the weather is uncertain.

Hi Matt- yes the theory would suggest that, but I've tried this in practice and the longer exposures are giving me better results. I initially tried 5 minute exposures when I got the Ha filter and have gradually built up to ten and the results are definitely better. I think the cold weather helps!

Always a bit tricky imaging under a bright moon, but even more so when you’re in clumsy mode. Last night I managed to disconnect the power from my mount whilst aligning. Twice! Then I dropped an eyepiece by slewing the scope without having it fixed properly (fortunately it landed on the rubber eye cup). Finally I spent ages trying to work out why I couldn’t focus my guide-scope until the penny finally dropped that I was twiddling with the locking ring and not the focuser. So I’m taking this picture as a victory of the scope over its owner! 15x 10 min subs – Canon 600d – 130 pd-s- 7nm Ha filter.

I needed to take 15mm off mine (I'm using a modded 600d and a sw cc), but I only cut about 80% off- I left a section in place at the bottom of the drawtube stop it falling out- it doesn't seem to affect star shapes.

Here's my Monday night effort- M52 and the Bubble Nebula. 20x 5 min lights + flats, darks and bias. 130pds / HEQ5pro / Canon 600d / IDAS D2 Filter Stacked in DSS and Processed in Pixinsight

Great project, and love the quote! I have a 14” (manufactured, and nowhere near as beautiful as I suspect yours will be) and it is indeed full of stars.

Finally got a finished version of last Saturdays subs. I managed to collect 16 ten minute Ha subs (it was a bright moon), along with another 10 of the shed wall (not included here!). I used them for the B&W image below, then combined them into the red channel of an RGB image from 9th October on the same target. My framing was a bit different this time (I definitely need to improve my framing), so the colour image below is the intersection between the 2. 130pds, Canon 600d, HEQ5, Baader Ha Filter (Ha), IDAS D2 filter for RGB from October.

So presumably a smaller illuminated field? I wondered if it might be something like that. Perhaps one day I'll get a short f/l frac instead- but I'm sure the 130pds will keep me going for a long time to come, before further investment is needed!

I suspect the number of nights where this occurs is quite small. It's a good thing to be aware of, but unless there's a change approaching that, then I'm going to carry on hanging out in the single focus club! ?