alacant

Does it need power? I found it works more reliably without. But then again, I only have imaging camera and mount connected. If anything, I'd run a separate lead to the guide camera; one frame every 2 seconds as opposed to one frame every 300 seconds. Just my €0.02. Cheers

Hi everyone We ran out of blue nebulae, so succumbed once again to the other end of the visible. An in-your-face wizard nebula with refractor-like stars; the frames were stacked without filtering those hazy and badly guided. Unfortunately, we've lost the originals. Yeah, i know. Too much orange juice. Nice to see stars these days, but here they push too far. I think. Thanks for looking and do post if you've had a go at this. 700d on pn208, iso800

Hi. I think that whilst the 10" will go on a €2000 mount, the same for the 12" is going to set you back -at least- three times that. But hey, with a 12" f4 at just 1200mm, it would enable you capture targets in an hour or so which would take 3 nights for mere mortals using equipment with similar fov. My 6" f8 for example. If your climate limits the clear nights you have anyway, it maybe a good option. Cheers

Were you on stable ground and at both the meridian -az- and at 90° -alt- to it? I find pHd2's traditional drift reliable although the eq6 altitude adjustment leaves a lot to be desired; I always need to finish with the south bolt clockwise and take up any slack with the north bolt, otherwise it moves. HTH

Couldn't agree more. The numbers mean nothing if you're satisfied with your final images;) Cheers

Hi. That's more than acceptable. In fact you may want to increase the error so that DEC guides in one direction only. Guiding apps will happily cope with a large pa error. I keep my eq6 around 3' to 5'. Cheers

Hi guys. After all this, usb-serial cable substitution gotta be worth a try. Cheers

Not so damp here until later on in the year, but here's an example with HFD. Same telescope and guide calibration on consecutive nights. One with easterlies, 3.0, The next, northerlies, 2.6. Same part of the sky: And here's an example where the air changes direction from East, via south west (along the coastal strip) to north-west (from the altiplano). The relative humidity is in light green. Looks like with a bit of luck, we'll make it through the whole of astro-darkness:)

That's great news. I think we're at about the same latitude. What i find at this time of year in particular is that the seeing -and so the guiding- is dictated very much by the air stream. The coastal strip here north of Alicante is only about 10km wide with steep slopes immediately to our west. Anything with an easterly component throws up haze as the damp air rises and cools. Everything else is dry and so the seeing remains constant all night. I wonder if you may be similarly affected? Maybe worth investigating, particularly as you become more automated. I think guiding is very much affected by seeing. Cheers

Decrease.

Hi Increase the mount guide speeds from zero to at least 0.5 a-s/s for both axes. Then go for a calibration. HTH

Hi One of these screwed into one of these. It should be quite good for the planets. HTH

Hi Whilst imaging, I had a look using a 6" refractor which despite being longer focus, seemed to give a wider fov. probably because it's a circle rather than a small sensor [1]. We saw nothing apart from a faint averted vision glimpse of the cluster at 10-o'clock with the central stars and the brighter cluster at 7 o'clock the only definite sightings, made no easier due to the lateral inversion between the two telescopes. No sign of any nebula. With 12" you stand a lot more chance I think. I'm not much good on numbering, but here's the plate solve. HTH and do post back if you manage to grab it. [1] **EDIT. Yeah, of course. It depends on the eyepiece. DUH!

Hi everyone This time in Cepheus, we found another reflection nebula and this one too stood up well to the gibbous moon. They always seem noisy around the edges though. Not for want of time I don't think as this was 2 1/2 hours. I would have thought that that was sufficient to lose any noise. Alas, my patience whilst processing this stuff is not of the highest degree; half an hour and I've had enough. Or maybe it was the moon's influence? The histogram was moving more to the centre as the moon got brighter and we reduced from 4 minutes to 3 minutes in an attempt to compensate. In fact, so long as the histogram remains left of centre, I'm not convinced it makes much difference. Anyone? Thanks for looking and do post if you've had a go at this or found any other blue nebulae. They seem few compared to the red type. eos700d onES pn208

Hi Reduce the ISO to 400. If you can take say 100(0) similar frames and stack them, you'd begin to reduce the noise and see the spiral. Worth a try? Cheers

Hi That would enable you to move closer to your expectations. Add a heavy mount and guide telescope to that which @vlaiv lists and you'd not be much over your 3k budget. If you have sufficient clear sky opportunities then I'd go for it. Your image is however very good given the limitations of your telescope. Cheers

It needs adjusting. Try this then this. Cheers.

Sorry. I meant in the photo you sent. At which point on the circumference would it be found? Cheers.

Hi Where is the focuser? The secondary isn't offering a circular appearance and may need to go further toward the primary. Looks like a good staring point though and may well be fine if you're just observing, but for anything else, probably better to adjust it. The easiest way is a to use a Cheshire sight tube. One with cross hairs, even better. HTH

Had the 8" f3.9 for the weekend. Makes the 6" seem decidedly dim! A bit more nebula, but still no red...

Hi That seems unlikely. The only time when phd2 will slew the mount is during polar alignment. We need to look at the guide log, find the time when the star was lost and take it from there. I'm afraid anything else is just a guess. I've found that automation is one of the most difficult parts of AP. The closest I've come out of the box is the EKOS scheduler with the hardware under indi. That will cope with lost star events and go all night unattended. But remember PHD2 only reports the lost star. It's up to the capture software to do something about it. I'm not sure apt has that ability. Cheers and HTH.

Hi Yes. There's an excellent software bin algorithm in StarTools. It's saved me on many occasions;) Cheers and HTH

Hi Good shot. There's quite a bit of data here but it's difficult to process due to the artefacts. If you want terrestrial too -nice idea- perhaps better to take two shots, one for each? Anyway, there is some mw there. If you want more, you could use a longer lens, stopped to f5.6 perhaps and take flat frames. An astro-modified camera would help bring forward the colour, and of course more exposure. HTH

No criticism, just a big pat on the back. Crack open the Champagne. Excellent image. Advice? Lose the dark frames. Keep the bias and flat frames but instead of the darks (which as you may have noticed introduce more noise). dither between each light frame. Stack with a clipping algorithm. Result: nice smooth low noise backgrounds. Cheers

Not at all. Correct. Looking forward. Cheers