ok, wow. Thanks.

Carsten

How can they be parallel? They should be still in a train like orbit? I don't get it.

Cheers,

Carsten

5 minutes ago, FLO said:

Some of the comments in this thread suggest a problem with the telescope or its reducer but our experience here at FLO suggests the opposite. 

 

Thanks for that heads up!

I clarified my post.

In fact FLO was the only seller caring about my questions! Thanks for that!

Carsten

I am happy that I did not order the 72ED. This seems to be a real journey and with all the spacers, flatteners and mounting problems it seems tedious and expensive. At least for imaging.

Edit: Thats what I feel about it after following many discussions and also trying to get more information from sellers. Now when the scope is out in the wild I may find more substantial information for my special needs/equipment.

Carsten

9 hours ago, tasheeya said:

thanks. no its not. all images are less than 1 hour of data. between 5min and 45min. subs are between 8sec and 30sec. i can search my data and give exact details if you want.

That rough estimate is enough to make me try again with my D5100 Thanks!

Carsten

1 hour ago, tasheeya said:

most of these are taken with a nexstar GT mount bought from ebay for 70$.  most of these are few years old. now i have a good setup but this is how i started and fell in love with this hobby.

55-300mm lens + D5100, eta carinae

 

Wow, ist that D5100 astro modified? Never seen so much red with them. How many subs/@what time?

Carsten

40 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

9 1/2 minutes to say cheap connectors are poor quality?

40W is way more than you need to solder those unless you have very poor technique! And agreed crimp is good.

I bet that CNC holder coast ££££, the sort of thing only used by reviewers... any 3D printer with a bit of nous will print their own!

Yea, my thinking as I watched the vid.

And they are definitive NOT for crimping. So I agree with that, having them crimped calls for trouble.

The original XTs worked flawlessly (soldered with 80W iron) in my helicopters at 22V, which is at 800-1000W input above 30Amps...

Carsten

15 hours ago, KRYPTON said:

Hi Carsten

Thanks for the reply. Do you have any more information on the "cheap BT modules" and how you connected it?

Many thanks Ken

Search for something like this:

Quote

Wireless-Serien 4 Pin Bluetooth RF Transceiver Modul RS232 P4L6

It is just a BT to Serial adapter.

Carsten

2 hours ago, Chriske said:

 
The absolute winner was PLA that had nearly no deformation after months in full sun.

 

 

Hehe, yes thanks for that other mythbusting post!

I also tried similiar and busted the "UV and composting" myth (for me at least). A sample single wall piece was exposed to the sun/weather and the other one in my compost heap. Nearly two years and no degration (other then cosmetically)

EDIT: Also used a (grey) PLA 1.25" to Nikon Adapter which holds my Nikon D5100 to the scope, worked even while Merkur Transit for hours into the summer sun (germany tho).

Carsten

If you don't insist on a full parametric design and work more like an artist than an engenier you may try Blender.  http://Blender.org

Best try first the Beta of 2.8 which is much more beginners friendly.

I did all my 3D things in Blender.  https://www.thingiverse.com/calli/about

I have some designs up thingieverse which relate to astronomy. Even started a small Skytracker for small cameras. Works but is only in concept phase.

Made 80% of my astrophotos with a printed 1.25" inch to Nikon Adapter

https://www.thingiverse.com/calli/about

Cheers,

Carsten

I think I posted also here, I just put one of these cheap BT modules onto the serial and it works. Controlling by mobile or PC.

Carsten

stupid post deleted ?

Where is the delete button?!

25 minutes ago, Susaron said:

Looks a bit unballanced... From left to right.... Moneywise SCNR

6 hours ago, LOL221 said:

I never really used GIMP before, only once to draw something. I will try it now and let you know!

I did a very basic video some years ago. It got almost as much bad as good comments, so be warned ?

But maybe you get the idea of the workflow I use. All my images are done Alt/Az and processed in Gimp, so...

Get you a 2.10 Version to support higher bit depths. In the comments to the video you can find the de-noise plugin I used.

Carsten

11 hours ago, happy-kat said:

That has come out pretty good. 

Were you unable to take longer than 10 second exposures?

This day yes. I tried some more seconds but lost too much subs then so I decided to try it short. Maybe it was the rough one star align or/and my mount is EOL or needs maintanance. After the latest Maker Faire where a kid moved it by hand on both axes I needed to repair it...

On my first tries I was able to achive often 30 seconds with the Mak127@1500mm as OTA, so 310mm should not be a problem....

Carsten

Two years and two months ago I imaged M31 Andromeda Galaxy with my Nikon D5100 anda Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm, 315mm (Crop factor!) @ f5.6 on my NexStar SLT Goto Mount. Approx 17 Minutes Lights.

Stacked in DSS and processed in GIMP 2.9.x

This was under the darkest Sky I had seen so far in the franconian Swiss (south germany).  The results were nice.

A few days ago I tested the same target with the same setup from Berlin in a heavy light polluted area (airport, highway, neighbors with bright LED lights...) just to test what is possible.

During the imaging I did a live stack with astrotoaster and the results seemed nice.

But stacking in DSS next day showed terrible red images. I tested much things but in the end I think it is the LP and I was only able to solve this by doing a whiteballance early in the stretching process which of course destroys some data.

After long Experiments I got this: (approx 160 lights@10s iso800, Darks, Flats, Bias)

Quite comparable to the old image:

There is a remix of my design for the focusser mechanics which is intended for the

Celestron Nexstar 4SE

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3144339

As the images get better and better for first ones I put in my images here ? to encourage beginners ?

https://goo.gl/photos/fN794VnbNKKwXzdv7

From bottom of the album you can see my progression (or not..) all don on a non-astrofoto mount (NexStar SLT Alt/Az Goto). Orion Nebulae is indeed my first DS image.

Cheers,

Carsten

1 hour ago, moise212 said:

I link this here too, maybe some will land here for results with the 72ED.

 

Can you just do a quick note how you connect the camera and which spacer and what not were used? The Thread gets a bit big to search this all.

Thanks,

Carsten

17 hours ago, smisy said:

Very nice job, Calli! How did you stack the pictures? I think, over the sun and moon + planets everything is deep space object, or isn't?

The animation was Normalized/Calibrated and Registered (Preprocessing tab) in "regim" (as DSS did not work with my files). Then I used these .fits files to make ,tiffs and stabilized them in Blender (https://blender.org) a complete Open Source 3D Suite which can also do tracking and stabilizing of footage... Yes at least one App I know for sure ?

The stacked one I am not sure anymore, I think I use also regim and then used Fitswork batchprocessing to track on the Coment? I really forgot it was a bit a PITA...

Carsten

On 18/08/2018 at 08:19, smisy said:

I tried again the comet 21P Giacobini-Zinner, Celestron Nexstar 8 SE, Alt-az mount, Huawei P10 smartphone, monochrome camera, 25mm plössl eyepiece. 2018. 08.15. 23:52, Hirschegg im Kleinwalsertal, Austria. 30 sec exposition at ISO 1600.

 

Well done!

I did also try on that target. As it is not exactly Deep Space but you give me good excuse to post it here too

And the stacked image:

1 hour ago, The Admiral said:

Well done calli, but I can't help thinking you could get rather more out of your data. Further stretching and a lower black point? Have you tried Startools? Free trial is not restricted other than saving, not expensive to buy either. It works well with the sparse data from Alt-Az imaging.

Ian

Hmm. I am too lazy to learn a new tool ? I maybe uploaded the version from the night. Here is some more enhanced:

I usually stop when I see so much noise that I (in my experience) cant cope with it. So I am quite sure in my capabilities I got quite the most of it out.

I had my nephew (16 yo) coming over last night. We looked at Jupiter and then browsed a bit the stars. We then slewed to M57 and took some fotos. It worked out quite well this night even with a one star align. I did not expect any good but we did go though all steps (Subs, Darks, Bias, Stacking, Gimp) as he is very interested in all phyics, computers and astronomy. In the end we had a nice image, I think the best so far I got from that target. Scope was a Mak127 on a NexStar SLT Goto mount and a Nikon D5100. Took 10s subs@iso6400, 55 where usable (about 50%...).

Look up my other images (all no EQ) in my Signature (Google Fotos) an you can see my other takes on M57.

Yea, last time I tried INDY DSLR with GPhoto did not work with Nikon also. So bad.

Carsten