Whistlin Bob

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...

Hmmm... Could be a future improvement🤔😀

@lguise and @Alan White thanks for the interest 😀. Here's the inside: The battery compartment is lined with the protective polystyrene that the battery was delivered with. On the right hand side is the compartment that holds keyboard, cables etc. On the left hand side is a panel with a switch,12v socket and usb power supply, and I added a couple of extra 12v sockets. You can see it a bit better here. The mini pc sits outside the box and plugs into the box via a 12v to 19v adaptor, but under an overhang to protect it from dew. I also have an inverter, but at this point don't need a 240v supply. I've also added a touchscreen which is attached to the other end by velcro- which makes it easy to move onto the mount. I originally tried to run the pc via Remote Desktop and then TeamViewer from my phone, but a couple of dropped network connections led me to find a different solution.

I've spent a few months making this. The idea is that it's a single box for all the bits and bobs I need for an imaging session. I found that a lot of the time that I spent getting ready to image was in going back and forth to the garage looking for this cable or grabbing that adaptor, then plugging it all together. Using bits of plywood from the offcuts bin at B&Q, it holds a leisure battery, a mini pc, a small screen and keyboard, plus has a compartment for other odds and sods. It had its public debut on Friday night at Rosliston Forestry Centre in moon mode. Here are some pics 😀 and here are some 'action' shots...

Funnily enough my Nirvana experience is similar. I have the 4mm and on most targets it's a bit meh. However, on steadier nights, lunar views in an 8 inch dob are simply breathtaking. The textures and subtleties that it reveals on the lunar surface at 300x are just gorgeous. A summer evening in my shirtsleeves and half a moon with a dob packing a 4mm nirvana is just about astronomy perfection, improved only with the addition of a cool beer. If you do take the nirvana plunge again, I hope it gives you some moments like that!!!

I still follow this thread even though my 130pds (which pulled me into this whole ap rabbit hole) hasn't seen a lot of action for a while. I find myself either going wide with 72ed/camera lenses or going tighter with 200p on galaxies. However I've had it out twice over the last few months and both times it has been a pleasure to use- issue free and barely even needing collimation. It came out twice in March to catch a composite of the moon with my DSLR- see below with a bit of mineral magic added: It also had a trip out in April where I was trying to capture M87. This was quite frustrating as I was attempting to get a super cheap svbony camera to guide for me. Ultimately, it wouldn't work, so the shot below is unguided and uses an hour of 20s subs taken with an Altair 183c: There are some obvious problems with the stars caused by the lack of guiding, but if you zoom in on the galaxy you can see the jet produced by the black hole, which I thought was pretty good for a little newt: Every time I use it, I do find myself admiring what a ridiculously good scope it is for the money. To chip in on the debate about shortening your draw tube, I use the SW 0.9x coma corrector. It required me to take about 10mm off my draw tube to get decent stars. I think that's pretty pants design by Skywatcher, but I have to admit that the cost relative to other solutions is very low and it has given me an f4.5 astrograph at a very decent price (they were £169 back when I bought mine).

Had a cheeky 45 mins before bed tonight, taking notes as I went... Lined up on Arcturus. Tried to split Izar, bit more elongated Moved onto Castor- easy peasy! Tried Epsilon Lyra- tighter pair were a bit tricky in the zoom, maybe not dark enough and too low. Then settled on the moon with 4mm nirvana... Montes Alpes throwing spectacular shadows. The canyon starting at Trouvelot perfectly illuminated, with the northern wall shining brightly. Archimedes like a black hole, but with the eastern wall lit up gloriously Montes Appeninus just a huge area of texture Cassini beautifully illuminated Moving up to Ptolomeus, Alphonsus and Arzachel- loads of texture, crater floors just coming into view. Alphonsus partially illuminated with lots of texture, the central peak casting a spike of a shadow on the far crater wall, terracing showing up beautifully. Floor of Arzachel completely black, but the central peak standing out brilliantly and the back wall with even better terracing. Walther another highlight. Counted 12 craterlets in the floor. Miller/Higgins/Drontius a craggy mess of overlapping impacts. Imaging hiking there in one sixth gravity! Curtius really nice with lots of detail on the crater floor. Southern Highlands a bundle of illuminated overlapping rings around black crater floors. Back to the double double. Quite easy now 😀

I didn't see anything last night, and by the looks of the sky tonight there's no chance there either. However, it's been a nice sunny day and my local club is based at a forestry centre that runs family science discovery days. As a result I spent most of today with some solar film over the end of my newt showing and explaining sunspots to lots of very engaged (and engaging) young people and their parents. So today I saw a very active star with seven visible spots in my telescope and so did around a hundred other people. Lots of pictures taken, but not really appropriate to share them on the web, so here's a rare quiet moment with my cheapo 3rd hand Skywatcher outside our obsy waiting to excite the next group.

Club night tonight- and first time observing in company in a looooong time. I had a nice view of the Leo Triplet and of m51, but the best bit was sharing my bino viewers. For me, globs in a binoviewers are one of my favourite astro experiences, but difficult to share with others, due to eyes being different widths apart/having different focus points etc. Tonight, with 5 other club members, went through the routing of pointing at Arcturus, and getting them to focus one eye, then the other, then adjust the inter-pupillary distance until the scope was set up correctly for each individual. Then slewed round and put m13 in the field of view. Same thing each time: a pause, an intake of breath and then "oh wow". So gratifying!!!

I have a 183 sensor based camera paired with a 130pds and it's fine, but I would still endorse DaveS' advice- the newer generation of sensors do work better.

It's usually because they will struggle to reach focus- the light usually need to go a fair bit further. I do use binoviewers in my 8" and 14" dibs, but to achieve focus I use slim barlows that drop into the focuser (the 8" needs one, the 14" needs two).

It's funny how we romanticise the places we visit and criticise our own. Thirty years ago I was on an exchange visa, working in Sandusky Ohio, and pretty disinterested in astronomy, when I had a night out under the stars by Lake Erie with some friends, and was blown away by the naked eye sight of the Milky Way which I'd never seen from home. In my imagination the skies of Ohio are a wonder, but maybe it was just a lucky night!!

Yeah- just fantastic tonight. Unexpected session- split it between doubles in Cass, Perseus and Gemini and lunar. Using the 8 inch dob and 4mm nirvana eyepiece the moon looked better then any uhd TV. Really breathtaking, and the terminator through the southern highlands was fabulous.

Sounds like you've already got the right plan- that is definitely worth trying out. Was just going to flag that I've got the same filter that I originally bought for imaging, and it works really well in 8" and 14" Newts for visual. I know that's not quite the same use case, but planetary nebulae are awesome in it and I get great views of The Veil as well.

Don't we all just love a story with a happy ending? Smart move to video the unboxing of the mirror to protect yourself, but it's pretty heartbreaking to watch. Made reading the observing report all the better! Congratulations on an awesome scope- looking forward to hearing more if your adventures with it.