wimvb

Nice! Try to get 20 hours or more. Once the noise gets less, all kind of redshifted galaxies pop up, many of which aren't catalogued. The great dipper is a real treasure trove for distant galaxies, and not having a long fl actually helps, because it allows wider vistas. Btw, what is your source for the galaxy data? Be aware that redshift for quasars for some reason isn't the same as for galaxies; it overestimates their distance.

That's a great image and very deep. Some of those faint galaxies are more than 600 Mly distant (pgc 34144; nearby pgc 2506900 is 760 Mly distant).

I have the pegasus focus cube but not the power box. AfaIk, the focus cube should NOT be connected to the focuser output of the power box. The focus cube is a standalone unit which only needs a usb connection and a 12v power source. The focuser output of the power box is for the pegasus focuser, which is only a stepper motor, without control electronics. Motor focus kit https://pegasusastro.com/motor-focus-kit/ Focus cube https://pegasusastro.com/products/focuscube-2/

My and @Firas setup after some drama last night. (I know that this is not my setup in action at night, but forgive me for not taking pictures while the drama was evolving. 😉) Unexpected snowfall put an end to an imaging session. I had to rush out, release clutches and just poinet the scopes down. Then closed the roofs (two halves) before more snow could get in. The floor was covered in snow, as was the corrector plate of my MN190. The positive with the current weather is that the temperature in the observatory, even with two smal heaters, is sub zero, so snow is dry and is easily removed; I could brush and blow off most of the snow. I left the scopes in this position until this morning when I cleaned everything. From the outside it looked much nicer. (No worries, not all that snow fell yesterday. Just that thin layer on the roof.)

I don't think that dirt on the mirror will show in your flats. Any dust bunnies you can see in flats are from much closer to the sensor. I doubt you would see dust bunnies on a coma corrector even, and that's only 55 mm or so from the sensor. The problem with a dirty mirror is that its reflectivity changes and that it will spread light and not just reflect it. But this will get only gradually worse, so you never really know when enough is enough.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/misc/black-velour-telescope-flocking-material.html Where else? 😁 You could also argue that flocking material will trap dust. Or that flocking dust is easily removed with a bellows. Either way, if it improves your star gazing experience, it's probably worth it.

That's my procedure as well. Better safe than sorry, and collimating a Newt isn't rocket science.

Personally, I would never leave a mirror in it's cell while washing it. There's no way you can properly dry the cell afterwards, and water left in a metal assembly is a sure way to get corrosion. You will also trap water between the mirror and clamps. If you leave water there, it can, over time, affect the aluminium, even if that's covered by a hard protective layer.

The mirror looks hazy. If that really is so, and not just poor contrast in the video clip, I'd say that it's definitely time for a wash. Btw, the inside of the tube also looks bright. Flocking needed?

Most light blocking and nb filters have a highly reflective coating on one side and ar coating on the other side. The ar coated side should face the camera otherwise light can reflect off the camera window and then off the coated filter back into the camera. If you test for this, and whether the reflection is caused by the filter, just target a very bright star. Even single subs should then show the reflection.

That could very well be. Do you have the possibility to take subs without the L-pro?

Thank you, Mark What scope did you use for observing these. NGC 2469 is brighter than the others, but I guess you must have been at a dark site with a large(-ish) aperture telescope.

My gues is that it's a reflection from the brightest star in your image. It's too weak to be visible in single frames, but above the noise floor in the stacked image. As @JamesF noted, variations in sky quality during the session can make it more prominent in some subs.

Earlier this week we had an unexpected and short lived gap in the clouds and I was able to get a few subs in. As the sky could cloud over any minute, I decided not to start a major project. In stead I pointed my telescope straight up at a cloudless and seemingly empty patch of the sky in the constellation of Lynx. According to Aladin, there should be a few small but interesting distant galaxies in this part of the heavens. Luckily, the clouds kept their distance for a few hours, and I was able to collect 112 minutes RGB and 50 minutes Luminance. The target for the night was a cluster of galaxies, called Nest 100044 (RA 8hrs, DEC 56 deg). This cluster has 18 identified members in the SIMBAD database. Their magnitudes range from roughly 14 to 18, with NGC 2488 towards the left in my image, being one of the brightest members. The cluster is situated at a distance of some 380 Mly from our own galaxy. One of its largest members is the needle galaxy towards the bottom of my image. This edge on spiral galaxy, named UGC 4133, has an angular size of 1.37 arc minutes and is located at a distance of 390 Mly. Its size is approximately 150 000 lightyears across, 50% larger than our own Milky Way. UGC 4133's siamese twin, UG C4134 is 2 Mly further away. Its angular size of 0,89 arc minutes means that it is about as large as the Milky Way. Also in this field of view, just above and to the right of the centre, is NGC 2469, which is located less than half the distance of the cluster. This galaxy is also much smaller, only about 31 000 light years across. Because NGC 2469 is so much closer to us, it looks both brighter and more blue. Btw, the warmer colour of the cluster is not due to the red shift (which is only 0.029), but rather the scattering of light by galactic dust in the Milky Way. Brighter NGC 2469 is less affected by this than the more distant galaxies of NEST 100044. (click on the image to view the full size) Capture details: MN190 on SW AZEQ6-GT with ZWO ASI294MM camera and 31 mm Optolong LRGB filters L: 33 x 90 s at gain 120 and temperature -20C RGB: 15 x 150 s for each channel Capture software: Ekos/Kstars Processed in PixInsight.

Or you could invest in a nuc/compute stick/asiair/stellarmate/raspberry pi. If you lose one of these due to dew or rain, it's not the end of the world. They are cheap enough and readily replaced. I went the raspberry pi route a couple of years ago, before asiair or stellarmate, just because I didn't want a laptop outside. It took a while to get it all working, but was totally worth it. It's worth having two, in case one breaks down during a session. To get back to the camera in the original post, if it works, it is great. But what if things don't work as expected? How easy is troubleshooting? A few years ago, a friend of mine used a SBIG SG-4 standalone autoguider. It really was a one pushbutton solution. But he had no idea just how good or bad his guiding was. It worked ok when he used an 80ed with a large pixel camera on a heq5. When he upgraded to a 1000+ mm fl telescope, he changed to an oag, lodestar and phd2 on an eq6-R. I think that this camera will be a good solution for some of us, but not for everyone. It will depend on levelmof ambition and how well it fits with the rest of one's gear.

Most people have some sort of computer (laptop, nuc, raspberry pi) at their mount anyway, and software is cheap or even free. So will it revolutionize ap? Depending where you’re coming from, perhaps. For all of us? No. Because, what if guiding (or platesolving) isn’t just ”push here, dummy"? I want to see what my system is doing, even if that’s just following a guide graph on screen.

All the best wishes to you and your wife. In your image it looked as if the walking noise describes a circular pattern. Polar missalignment can do this. Dithering will break up the walking noise pattern. It will also reduce colour mottle that is common in dslrs. But you need to dither at least 12 pixels (according to guru Tony Hallas).

I douwnloaded your image and had a go at it with PixInsight, with the only objective to see how much colour there was. I removed the gradient, but didn't fix the artefact above and to the left of M82. I then extracted the lightness information and processed colour and lightness separately. I left the noise in the image, but reduced the colour mottle in the background a little. The noise is strongest in the red channel. This channel is also the weakest and the read pattern of the camera shows through. A modern dedicated astro camera has much lower read noise, so you would avoid this issue. In my opinion it is the noise due to light pollution that is the main cause of the absence of colour. Remember that if you remove the light pollution in processing, you remove the signal part, but not the associated noise. The best way to reduce noise is to collect more data. A rule of thumb is that if you lose a magnitude in sky darkness, you need to increase the integration time by a factor of 2.5. This image needs more data if you want to pull out the noise. If you decide to invest in a new camera, you should definitely look into a cooled mono-camera, rather than osc. Mono with RGB filters is less sensitive to ordinary light pollution because there is a gap in the transmission between R and G, and this is where man made light pollution generally is strongest. With a mono camera, it will also be easier to do NB imaging. Btw, you have walking noise in your image. Dithering 15 pixels between exposures should help.

My guess is that you still have light leaks in your darks. Remove the camera from the scope and put a metal lid over the camera window. Alternatively, use aluminium foil to cover the camera. Also, take darks at night. That should solve the problem.

Needle nose pliers may work, or just two allen keys. I used a piece of wood with 2 nails driven through. As for grease to use. Most people use Lithium grease, but it will depend on your climate. Make sure it still works in cold weather. A good quality bycicle grease may do a proper job. It is important to clean everything from debris. Skywatcher low end mounts can have a lot of metal debris inside. You don’t want this between gears or in the clutch mechanism.

Usually these talks are posted on youtube. Should be available soon.

Yes, lower fwhm = tighter stars In post processing, you can tighten the stars (and details) a little more with deconvolution

You can add a weight factor to the subs (Max - FWHM) / (Max - Min) Where Max is the highest FWHM and Min is the lowest value. In this scenario, all sub contribute, but subs with a small fwhm contribute more. Experiment for best results.

With all the extras you’d need to buy and figure out, it’s probably easier to just get an eq3 Pro.

That's why he can buy astro gear unpunished. Norwegians, and Swedes living in the East of the country get the clouds. Btw Göran, you have to update your signature. 😉 EdgeHD 8", Celestron RASA 8", SW MN190 Cameras: ASI 6200MM, ASI 2600MC, ASI 071MC,