Whistlin Bob

Same here- a brilliant eyepiece. It does almost everything, but for everything it does, something else I've got does it a little bit better.

After some years of reading drooling posts about various Televues and Pentaxes I suspect that I'm bringing a knife to a gunfight here, but I paired my Skywatcher Aero 30mm eyepiece with a SW 0.9x Coma Corrector that I usually use for imaging and put it in my 14" Dob and it's wonderful: 50x mag, near 70 degrees afov, and pin sharp stars almost edge to edge. A very close second is my binoviewers with a pair of WO SWA 20mm in them.

My secret weapon! Brilliant eyepiece👍

Not much chance of astronomy when you're in the middle of Birmingham, but here's the moon and Jupiter over Grand Central station tonight.

Nice little sessionette after a club night last night. The skies looked clear on the way home, but there was lots of broken cloud and threatening rain by the time I got back, so the original plan of an all night imaging run was shelved. Consoled myself with a very relaxing little midnight session with the 8 inch dob. Started on Jupiter and spent a while there until the clouds covered it. Seeing was better than usual: 300x was just about sustainable, with nice detail emerging all the way to the poles. Very thin cloud cover actually seemed to improve the view briefly, like an ND filter! The Galileans were nicely arranged in the fov. That part of the sky clouded over for a bit so I went West and spent a little time splitting the double double and enjoying Vega. Next came a gap to the east, so back to the Nirvana 4mm and Mars was offering a little detail- some surface shading and a hint of ice. Looking forward to the next few months there. The next gap was overhead so I went for the double cluster at 36x: some lovely colours coming through, but the conditions really didn't allow it to show its best. Now the gaps were to the south again so I finished back up at 300x on the moon and some really spectacular views of the limb, with shadows stretching forever across craters. This was my first serious scope and I've had it for seven years. There are now six others scattered around the shed and garage, all sexier in various ways. But it really beats all of them for a quick session like this: almost zero setup time, holds collimation like a dog with a bone and totally delivers on a wealth of targets. Love it 😀

Definitely very faint. I have Bortle 5 skies at home and, a few years ago, put my 14" dob in the right place with pretty high confidence using SkySafari and couldn't catch a hint of it- even with magnification > 400x. Happy to try again though 🙂

Just packing up after an unexpected session. I saw lots and lots of things, including wonderful views of Jupiter and M31, but best of all, for the first time in 3 years I saw the deer lick group and Stephan's Quintet. And I am just very very happy!!!

Not sure how wide something has to be to be widefield, this is 135mm, so if I'm in the wrong section please move I've had an ASI1600mm for a couple of years now, adding Baader UNB filters last year, and was keen to try something different with it, so I've got a ZWO lens adaptor and rigged it up on my HEQ5 with a finder guider. A bit over mounted!: For first light of this rig I attached a Russian made Jupiter 135mm from 1976, that I've had for a few years. Had a nice clear night last Saturday and have been playing with the data since. Here's an SHO version which is 90 minutes per channel, plus half an hour for some RGB stars: And here's a Starless HaRGB version- which really brings out the texture of the nebulosity: I have to say I'm completely delighted with this! For comparison, I used the same lens on the same bit of sky on my dear old Canon 600d mounted on a Star Adventurer couple of years ago. I was really pleased with it at the time, but the new setup blows me away!

I've been having rather a good time with my trusty 130pds over the last few weeks. It's always been a favourite, but over the last few years I've been exploring other scopes- it's been great to come back and have another play with it. Last night I had it on the Pelican nebula to see what how the Altair Dual Band filter performed on a nice bright nebula, and I'm pleased with the outcome- lots and lots of detail coming through (the conditions helped- it was lovely last night, best transparency in ages). Here it is in in HOO and OOH presentations- only negative was that the Oiii was a touch weak so I enhanced that channel with highlights from Ha.

Friday night was clear for me and I got 3 hours on the Iris nebula using an SVBony 405cc. This was really tough to process- especially the colour calibration routines in Pix really didn't like this data. But I've finally managed to get a half decent rendition of dust from Bortle 5- so I'm well happy !!!

Here's a couple of hours from Saturday on the Tulip Nebula. Captured on a 130pds, an SVBony 405cc and an Altair 4nm dual band filter.

Great report Steve- and love the improvised stool! It brought back some really happy memories- a few years ago I had a couple of sessions up at Keswick- it's terrific isn't it😁

Dataset 5 of 5: North America Nebula. After fighting with the Cave data it was great to have a play wth a much stronger dataset. This is 2 hours per channel plus 30 mins RGB. The first image is just the RGB with no other filters taken in Bortle 5- I'm amazed at how much nebula has come through. Then we have SHO. Again- in this instance I really like the faint detail on the starless version that's visible to the north of the nebula that's otherwise lost in the stars. I've also tried quite hard to bring out the different structures and textures within the nebula. I think this leads to it looking a bit more "messy" but I prefer the the greater detail, and after the frustrations with the Cave it's nice to work with a dataset that gives so much. As usual, I started obsessing over small details-this time it was trying to get the stars back in so that they didn't appear "stuck on", especially compared with the lovely stars in the RGB image. I've added a bit of "haze" around the before adding back in- I still haven't quite got the colours, but it looks better than it did. Thanks for looking!

Dataset 4 of 5: The Cave Nebula. Oh man this one was a pain. I've got 4 hours of Ha here, plus I also gathered 3 hours each of Sii and Oiii, but on processing them I just couldn't get a result that to me looked attractive- the channels were just too weak, except around the mouth of the cave itself. In the end I just went for HaRGB, and it's still a a little soft from the noise reduction. I have to say that I admire the dedication of imagers who are willing to dedicate so many of the meagre hours that we get in the UK to gathering data to perfect a single image- it can be such a massive test of your patience.

Dataset 3 of 5: Elephant's Trunk. Really pleased with this one. Like the Crescent, I got the Ha for this over 2 hours back in June (very limited darkness!), plus my standard 30 mins of RGB. The Oiii and Sii are both 3 hours from the 72ed rig. I got plenty from all channels so was able to do an SHO on this, although looking at it now it's a touch noisy. Might have a go with Topaz on this. Presented with starry and starless versions.

Dataset 2 of 5: M27. This is the only dataset not from the 72ed/asi1600 combo and was the first successful test of a a second rig I've been putting together- this is a 130pds, with one of the new SvBony 405c cameras and an Altair 4nm filter. This is 22 3 minute subs, plus 15 minutes with an IDAS light pollution filter to get some colour in the stars. Quite pleased to get the "wings" on the sides of this one with only just over an hour of integration.

Just had a lovely couple of weeks away with the family in France. A combination of cloud and light pollution meant I didn't get the chance to do any actual astronomy whilst I was away, but I did stack up a pile of data in the manic few weeks before I went away (I seem to need to work twice as hard before I go on holiday!!!), with a series of clear nights in the first week of August allowing a sequence of overnight sessions. Dataset 1 of 5: This is a wide shot of the Crescent Nebula area using a Skywatcher 72ed with an ASI1600 camera and Baader UNB filters. I captured the Ha for this back at the start of July, but didn't get a chance to go after the Oiii until August. The exposure time for this is 2 hours of Ha in 3 min subs and 3 hours of Oiii, plus 30 mins of RGB for the stars, stacked in DSS and then processed in Pixinsight. Approach was to register all of the stacks against each other, then strip the stars out of the 2 narrowband channels with StarXTerminator. The Ha stack, as always, is much stronger so it dominates the final image being all of the red channel, and with the strongest bits fed through into Blue and Green as well to bring out some of the texture of the nebula. I then added in the stars from the RGB dataset. I think in this dataset I prefer the starless version because it really exposes the structure of the nebula.

Sorry for the delay in replying- camping in France at the moment with dodgy internet. I had a small amount of tilt when I first got the camera. After a bit of fiddling with it I realised there was a small amount of play between the drawtube and the body of the focuser. Underneath the focuser there is a small panel where the axle passes through. With a bit of trial and error I was able to remove the play without making the focuser too stiff. I think I disassembled it first which helped me understand how it works- it's quite simple. 2 things: faint nebulosity came through much more easily and complete absence of gradients. I live on a main road and outside my house is a very bright 8m led streetlight that gives most of my images, including when I use 7nm filters, a nasty gradient (and has been the cause of a number of rows with e-on who are responsible for it, but don't seem to understand their responsibilities around light intrusion- horrible company). I can get rid of it in pixinsight, but this adds noise. When I use the 3.5nm version there's no gradient- which is brilliant.

I have this setup, and it has worked very well with the 130. I've had very minimal problems with microlensing, and I did need to adjust the focuser to get rid of tilt, but overall I've been very happy with how it performs. Some thoughts: - The 1600 is quite old tech now- the main issue is lower QE than the most modern cameras- but still a good bit higher that your 550d. If I was investing now I'd be tempted to either get a second hand 1600 or go for something newer depending on budget. - I use an NEQ6 too. I don't think it even notices the 130 is there! - I got the kit with the ZWO filters. They're fine, but I upgraded to Baader UNB filters, and that gave a dramatic improvement. - You'll probably find mono processing a bit of a faf compared with OSC, and your initial results not so good (mine were worse to start with), but once you get into the groove it's great. HTH

A wonderful evening last night- there's been nothing for ages and then 2 good sessions in a row- and it was not a work night, so the 14" could come out to play! M11 was a little bit disappointing to start with, as the sky down low was very milky- a shame because I love this object. It was all good from there: m13, m27, m31 and friends gave a really nice summer tour. Caroline's rose was a real highlight, and the veil with an Oiii filter and down at 50x was superb. I also copped a nice view of the Pacman nebula with the same filter, which is a visual first! The real highlight, though, was my first sight of the planets this season. Seeing on Saturn was good enough for the Cassini division to be clear, along with some detail on the disk. Jupiter rose much higher, great views esp of the northern equatorial belt- lots of detail. Going to be tired today, and I don't care!!!

First time out in a little while. What fab conditions. Moon was too close to neighbours house for any decent observation, so I worked my way up to Izar and a lovely easy split even though the sky was not yet dark. Quick tour of summer favourites- double double, Albireo, M13, Altair etc. Still not quite dark but had a wander down and found The Wild Duck Cluster- first time this season. I love the late summer milky way.

I love this bit of sky- and this is really well captured with loads of detail 👍👍👍👍

I have a Meade 105etx, which optically is quite marvellous. Let's not talk about the electronics in the mount though.... I miss his posts. I do hope he's Ok.

Now that is a beautiful machine!

First observing session for a month last night- just me and 8 inch dob in the garden- it doesn't get simpler then that. An early start in the morning meant I had a strict self imposed curfew, but in the twilight I had a nice time splitting Epsilon Lyra and Izar (good seeing!) and Arcturus looked magnificent- gold against deep blue. Albireo popped into view, with all its colour. Back up to Lyra for the Ring m57 and it was just visible. so I tried for M56 and it was there faintly with av. It was just dark enough now to see the stars of Hercules keystone, so I duly went up to m13 and enjoyed the view. Next for a bit of an experiment- I have a SW Aero 30mm which I've always enjoyed, but it's a bit soft around the edges, so I tried combining it with the SW 0.9 coma corrector that I use for imaging. Wow! Really crisp right across the field of view at a very comfortable 36x. Clearly the conditions were exceptional, but the eyepiece/corrector combo really performed too. I got lost sweeping up and down the milky way. My favourite bit was enjoying the star fields around Sadr. The inchworm cluster was tiny, but with pinpoint colourful stars. Pretty good stuff for a Newt! Sitting in the garden in my shirtsleeves, searching out old familiars- summer observing is a very different experience...