geoflewis

Following my earlier post.... ....here is the main course, well most of it anyway. I've processed 5 sets of 20 SERs through derotation and the rest, so will let the pictures speak for them selves. Not sure why the 3rd image has turned out a bit bluer than the others, but it is also the sharpest, so maybe that was from when I had the clearest sky and best transparancy. The processing for all images was almost identical. I still have 2 set to process, which I will add later, but I'm totally whacked and offered to show a friend my processing techniques tomorrow so will leave them for that. Thanks for looking.

THose are really nice images Stuart and the animation is different, but very cool 😎

That's a stonking good image Harvey and I also like this colour palette. Jupiter is really colourful isn't it, I love to view it at high magnification through an eyepiece and better still though binoviewers with a pair of 19mm panoptics (mag approx x200), though haven't got those out this year yet. It's truly a beautiful object.

THanks Harvey, I didn't see your comment as criticism, though my wife thinks I'm mad. Sitting outside under an open sky in the same position this time of years is perhaps more madness than anything else. I was very cold when I finished, literally shaking more than mere shivering, so I had to make a cup of tea and have a hot water bottle tucked into my shirt to calm me down before I went to bed. Feet and hands were frozen (not literally of course, but very cold) 🥶. I never really warmed up even in bed, so was still cold when I got up at around 9:30 this morning. We don't have the CH fully on yet, but I relented and turned it on for a brief burst about 1 hour ago.....

Thanks Adam, No I don't track, I just sit by the scope and give the mount an occasional nudge with the HC to correct any slight drift. The AP1200 is a sterling, if somewhat vintage, mount with very low PE so it tracks very well on it's own.

Thanks both, I probably also wouldn't image in those conditions, but It's the 1st time I've caught the GRS early in it's transition and the seeing was pretty good, so with Europa also in play, I just kept going. As it's been said before, it's the seeing that really matters for planetary imaging, so good seeing with poor transparency always trumps great transparency in poor seeing. There were a few times when I was ready to pack up, but looking over the observatory wall kept promising another clear patch, so well what can I say, I just kept going.....

I was out again imaging Jupiter for 3.75 hours capturing the GRS almost limb to limb and almost all of the Europa and it's shadow transits. During the session I captured 132 x 1m SER videos, totalling 330GB of data...!! I had to stop when my imaging laptop SDD was full, but by then the transparancy was getting very poor due to thickening clouds. I'd been capturing between and through variable cloud much of the session, but the seeing was good, so I thought it was worth persevering. Here are examples of what I was imaging through... No way would any DSO imager capture during those conditions..... ....but, I promised a taster image, so here is what I got from the best 2000 frames from a single 1m SER. It's a little soft and noisy, but the GRS is in full view, Europa just made contact and it's shadow is already transiting. The resolution should improve once I've processed a bunch of SERs then stacked and derotated the resulting TIFFs. I'm looking to put the best from ~15 videos into each image, so +/-30k frames each. If all goes well I might also produce a rotation GIF of the entire session. This lot is going to keep me busy a couple of days I think, not least cleaning up the smeared Europa & shadow transits after derotation; hence the taster image.... Thanks for looking and watch this space.....

Thanks Kostas, yes I think something in the 8ms -13ms capture speed seems to work best for me on Jupiter. I went faster with Mars last year, down at 3ms some of the time.

Despite the uncertain forecast I headed out again last night to image Jupiter. I think I've got all I can expect from Saturn this aparition, so it was a later start, but with Jupiter at a higher elevation, which was good. The seeing was average to fair when I started, so I experimented with some different capture speeds, setling on 5ms (180fps) for the first couple of sequences to try to freeze the seeing. This creates bigger files per 1m SER and I wasn't convinced that I was gaining much from the extra frames, so paused to experiment some more with slower captures of 8ms (125fps) and 13ms (76fps). To me 8ms seemed to his the sweet spot of speed and SNR, so I stuck with that for the remainder of the session. As Jupiter got to its highest elevation the seeing suddenly improved, so I tweeked focus to good effect before tha last two sequences of 20 videos. The best result is the 2nd last image from the sequence, as unfortunately fog started to develop quite quickly, so much so that was sitting in thick fog in my observatory by the time I finished. Below is the best image from the sequence, followed by a series of six images that I created from the more than 70 SERs that I captured. For the first 2 images I stacked best 2500 frames from each video, the remainder best 2000 frames reflecting the different capture speeds, but both being ~20% of total frames per video. Each image comprises between 8-11 SERs, so maybe 10m-15m elapsed time. Images were graded and stacked in AS3!, slightly processed in Registax6 to give WinJups derotation something to work on. The derotated stacks were then taken into Astrosurface for further wavelets, noise reduction, colour balance and saturation. From there they were taken into Image Analyser to use the frequency domain filter, colour noise removal and final colour vibrancy tweeks, with a final levels adjustment to shade the edge of Jupiter to enhance it's 3D globular appearance. The session ran from just after 11pm BST on 26/10 to 2:30am BST on 27/10. Everything, including me, was wringing wet from dew and fog by the time I got indoors.....!! Thanks for looking.

Good luck and please do let us know how it works out.... 🤞

As @malc-c said, what a great explanation, wish I knew that earlier this year, but is still a keeper for future reference.. Actually it's not me, but @orly_andicothat needs one now, as I got mine fixed by Astro-Physics during my trip to USA back in May, at not inconsiderable cost, as I just couldn't find a solution in the UK that I was comfortable with. Hopefully there's enough info and options here for @orly_andico to decide what to do.

Well it's a $2 battery easily sourced in the USA, just seems not so in the UK. It's crazy that they do exist in the UK, but so far as my extensive research showed ONLY for onward supply to OEM manufacturers for their products. I have family and friends in USA, one of whom works for UPS, so I thought I'd get him to ship some to me. He was willing but fell at the first hurdle on completing the paperwork, as not allowed for air freight without special packaging, hence the £100 shipping cost.....

Nope, there is no UK retailer for Astro-Physics, hence the challenge. As mentioned above, I tried Telescop-Service Baader in Germany, but they said that Brexit made it too much trouble for them to supply such a low value item to the UK....!! EDIT: It was Baader Planetarium not Telescop-Service, so I've corrected above. Baader are one of only two A-P retailers/distributors in Europe. This is their reply to my enquiry... Hello Geof, I hope I have good news for you. After our export dept. told me that shipping this battery will minimum 40 EUR plus price of the battery, plus import tax, plus...pluss... (which is close to what everybody else told you) I asked our UK representant Dr. Lee Sprouts if he has an idea how to help you. He came up with this link https://www.allbatteries.co.uk/lithium-button-cell-blister-cr2430fv-lf-renata-3v-285mah-pbl7312b.html Looks like they ship to consumers in small qty. He says he used this store before and is sure it is not a scam, even if the partial French text in the product description is a bit surprising. Maybe you should just place an order, at that amount you don't take a high risk. I hope this solves your problem! Best regards, Michael Michael Risch BAADER PLANETARIUM GMBH I tried allbatteries, but they didn't have any in stock in the UK and shipping from USA was >£100 for a single battery. I gave up after that......

That's great news. I tried them earlier this year and they said it would have to come from the USA so shipping cost was >£100. Maybe they now have some in the UK.....

Who?

Hi Malcolm, You're clearly more familiar with the working of these cell batteries than me, but everything that I found online said that there is no equivalent battery to replace the CR2430. As an example see this extract from utmel site (full site link below quote). "Coin-operated security sensors, such as the CR2430, are often compact and unobtrusive. However, because CR2430 batteries are wider than CR2025 and CR2032 cells, they cannot be used interchangeably. Even though CR2025 batteries are slightly thinner, they can sometimes be substituted for CR2032 batteries. There is no actual equivalent for a CR2430 battery. and they are quite an unusual size in the world of batteries." https://www.utmel.com/components/battery-cr2430-3v-lithium-battery-cr2430-equivalents-and-cr2430-vs-cr2032?id=948 Personally I would not take the risk on a high-end, expensive item of kit.

Well that was not my experience. I contacted RS, Farnells, Mouser and a bunch of other suppliers and they did not stock the required CR2430FV-LF battery. I have no idea whether a different spec battery like the 2032 would work. From what i understand accessing the battery compartment in the HC is something of a pig to do, so in the end I resorted to geting Astro-Physics to replace it and update firmware and databases at the same time. Expensive, but guaranteed to work.

That's a good question. The battery is what retains the catelogue of non stellar DSO objects, e.g. Messier, NGC, IC, etc., so if the connection fails these need to be downloaded and reinstalled, so I think a very secure connection is desirable, but.... 🤔

Hi Jon, I tried all (well many) of those suppliers earlier this year, but they do not have any CR2430 batteries where the pigtails are flat (Renata CR2430FV-LF) rather than perpendicular to the battery as seen in those links. That may have changed in the past 6 months, so it's always worth asking, however, the suppliers that I spoke to that said that they could source them, stated that as they would be coming from a USA warehouse, the delivery charge would be in excess of £100...!! @orly_andico Have you received the instructions from Astro-Physics on fitting the battery? If not, then this link might help.....https://astro-physics.info/tech_support/mounts/keypad/install-pigtail-harness-new-battery.pdf

VAT (Value Added Tax) is a European/UK tax due whenever value is added, be that for goods or services, so it will become due on re-import to the UK. It is unrelared to whatever taxes are due within the USA. This is not a warranty repair, but replacement of an expired battery in the HC that is probably many years old. The one in mine failed after at least 8 years as that's how long I've owned the mount and possibly 15 years as that is how old the mount was when the battery died since it's manufacture in 2007.

Thanks, but he is a great grandson - mind you I've had lots of fun telling friends that I'm a great grandad and now a great 'great grandad', if you get my drift 😄

Do these photos help?

That's good to hear...

As I understand it you will not have to pay import duty or taxes on the original value of the repaired item, just the cost of the repair, but you may want to check this page on gov.uk. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-outward-processing-to-process-or-repair-your-goods

I had the same issue earlier this year when the battery in my AP1200 HC died. I tried everywhere in the UK to buy one of these pigtail batteries, but they are not available to end customers like us. I found a couple of sources in the UK that had them, but they wouldn't supply to me as they only supply to OEM manufacturers for inclusion in their products. I also spoke to Telescop Service Baader Planetarium in Germany who are an AP supplier, but they said that the admin / paperwork since Brexit, meant that they would not ship a spare battery to me in the UK. My solution was to carry the HC with me on a holiday to the USA, ship it internally within USA and bring it back home with together with a spare pigtail battery (you can carry them in your carry-on, just not allowed in the hold. I know of one person here in the UK that carefully removed the pigtails from the old battery and soldered them on to a standard battery of the same specification, but that's not something I felt I could do. Good luck.