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geoflewis

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Everything posted by geoflewis

  1. Thanks Paul, it's good to have those capture details . Seeing your images certainly gave me a bit more confidence in mine, as the very slight red tinge in mine looks to be at a very similar altitude with respect to the Plough asterism in yours, not that I got all of that in my image.
  2. Lovely aurora pics Paul, what gear and exposures please? I had a look when I got the red alert and tried to see if I could capture anything, but my view to the north is very restricted, plus I missed the first alert peak due to cloud. However, I think that I got a hint of the red stuff in this image. Canon 600D+35mm lens - 10s @ ISO6400.
  3. Yes, they have good dark skies, though the light domes from Holt and Sheringham seem to get bigger every year. You’re probably already aware, but just in case not, please note that the KH site is mostly closed between mid Dec to mid Feb even for owners.
  4. Well I might be open to offers, but of course one of the reasons that we are buying it is so that I have somewhere to stay during the star party events without have to rent….. We’ve holidayed at KH once or twice a year for the past 10 years, indeed had already booked 3 separate weeks for 2022, but if if the purchase completes we’ll be there much more often than that as it’s only just over an hour from our home in South Norfolk.
  5. Hi everyone, my wife and I are in the process of buying a static caravans at Kelling Heath, which should complete on 11 Nov, so it's my intention to stay over the winterfest weekend. I doubt that I'll bring any gear, other than probably some binoculars, but hopefully I will be able drop by to meet some of you folks.
  6. Congratulations to the 3 winners 👏👏👏 For sure I agree with the decisions and Avani’s animation was for me the stand out submission 👍
  7. That's excellent Stu. We looked in the Crewkerne area too, I recall it being a nice town. Definitely darker skies there than urban Surrey... . I won't mention it to my wife, or she'll be in a bad mood the rest of the day / next week.....
  8. Hi @Stu, I've not been following SGL much recently, just dip in and out occaisionally, so imagine my surprise when I saw that you'd moved to Somerset? When did that happen and what part of Somerset are you now residing? My wife and I were going to move from Surrey to the Illmisnster area nearly 6 years ago, but that fell through and we ended up in my native county of Norfolk - me very happy, my wife initially less so, as she'd set her heart on Somerset/Dorset/East Devon region, but 5 1/2 years on, she loves it here 🙂
  9. I think I’ve posted this previously on a different thread. I split my scalp open standing up after tidying some cables at the base of my pier and cracked my head on the CW securing knobs of my AP1200 mount. I certainly saw lots of stars and boy did it bleed a lot; I had to go to A&E to have it glued and then couldn’t wash my hair for over 1 week whilst it mended. The glued scalp…. and the offending CWs….
  10. Thanks Neil and yes, it's definitely a pig to do. I tried the nearly full moon twice, but missed sections in both attempts. The 2nd try was better than the first (see https://www.astrobin.com/full/369059/0/?nc=collection&nce=1697, but I haven't tried it again....
  11. That's superb Neil, what did you use to build the mosaic?
  12. Hi Dan, Here are 9 Tiffs (3 each R-G-B) from my good Jupiter session on 15 Sept 2021. I was using a mono ASI290MM and Astronomic RGB filters through my C14. I will be interesed to see what you can produce from them. 2021-09-15-2212_8-R-Jup_L4_ap19_F1000_sharp30.tif2021-09-15-2214_4-G-Jup_L4_ap19_F1000_sharp30.tif2021-09-15-2215_7-B-Jup_L4_ap19_F1000_sharp30.tif2021-09-15-2218_6-R-Jup_L4_ap19_F1000_sharp30.tif2021-09-15-2219_9-G-Jup_L4_ap19_F1000_sharp30.tif2021-09-15-2221_3-B-Jup_L4_ap19_F1000_sharp30.tif2021-09-15-2224_0-R-Jup_L4_ap19_F1000_sharp30.tif2021-09-15-2225_4-G-Jup_L4_ap19_F1000_sharp30.tif2021-09-15-2226_8-B-Jup_L4_ap19_F1000_sharp30.tif NB These are best 1000 frames from 1 min video runs using Autostakkert (AS3!). I apply some sharpening in AS3! during grading and stacking step, hence the 'F1000_sharp30' in file names. I hope that makes sense. Have fun.
  13. I decided to create an animation of the images that I collected during the mostly good seeing of 15 Sept 2021. The animation lasts about 5 secs, but covers an elapsed time of approx 1 hour of Jupiter's rotation, with the GRS in transit. Some variation in the seeing is apparant. To create the animation I produced 36 separate RGB images from the separate R-G-B videos captured with my mono ASI290MM camera through the C14. Thanks for looking.
  14. Last night I had my best seeing so far this apparition. So with the GRS in transit I went for a long run with the thought that I might get enough for a partial rotation annimation. I managed 4 sets of 3x60s each IR-RGB and processed for best 1000 from each video. The data quality was sufficiently good that using the IR as luminance added little in the way of detail and was at the expense of washing out the natural colours of Jupiter, so I ended up stacking just the RGB, hence intergrated 9000 frames per image. The single image below is from Set 3, which I think was the best of the bunch, being just a tad better than Set 2. By the time I got through Set 4 and into Set 5 the conditions had deteriorated quite markedly, so that brought the session to an end, before I could capture the complete GRS transit. Nevertheless it was a very good seeion and for completeness, I have also attached below an annotated montage of the 4 images, which nicely shows the rotation of the planet over just under 1 hour. Thanks for looking.
  15. Here's another look at Jupiter, from 9 September 2021. The 2 images are just a few minutes apart with Oval BA nicely seen and Jupiter's fast rotation clearly apparant. Each image comprises the best 1000 frames from 3x60s runs of RGB and 4x60s runs of IR, the IR being applied at 50% opacity when compiling the LRGB images in WinJupos. Thanks for looking.
  16. Thanks Craig, Pete and Simon, yes, it’s good to be able to image the gas giants again, though as Pete points out, by the time Saturn reaches a really good altitude the north polar region with its hexagon will likely be nigh invisible to us.
  17. Thanks Bryan, it's been 2 years since I been able to image either Saturn or Jupiter, as they were too low down, so it was good making their acquaintance again 🙂
  18. As well as the series of four Jupiter images showing the Io transit on Saturday night that I posted on the Jupiter competition thread, I managed to get my first image of Saturn, as it transitted the meridian earlier on. I was using my new ASI290MM camera together with the x2 Powermate, but that gave an effective F24, much more than the guideline F14 for the small 2.9 micron pixels of this camera. Rather than taking the x2 PM out of the optical train, I opted to capture the data at Bin 2x2 in FireCapture, giving me effective F12, so a much better sampling rate. The image comprises 4xRGB and 5xIR runs each of 5000 frames, using Autostakkert to setect and stack the best 2000 of each for a total of 34,000 frames in the final stack. Wavelets were applied using Registax6 and the colour image was built in WinJupos, with the IR stack used as luminance at 100% opacity. A hint of the polax hexigon is seen, which is not bad considering that Saturn was still a low 18 deg altitude when transitting from my 52N location. Thanks for looking
  19. I've spent much of the past 2 days working through the huge amount of data that I capture of Io's transit of Jupiter on Saurday night into Sunday morning. I've reprocessed the previously posted image showing Io soon after it completed the transit, plus 3 other sets when Io was in mid transit and just prior to the end of it's transit. The separate images below are dispayed north up, with the annotated, composite image showing the progress of Io, with Jupiter presented south up as is preferred by the BAA. Thanks for looking.
  20. Here's my first halfway decent image of Jupiter this year. It comprises the best 1000 frames from last 3 60s runs with the ASI290MM and Astronomiv RGB filters, through my C14. I have a lot more data from earlier in the session when Io was in transit, so there may be more to follow. I probably should annotate the image, so may swap it out later when I've done that. Regards,
  21. Very nicely captured Peter. I was also out at the scope last night, it being the 1st really decent night's seeing I've had for planetary imaging this year. I'm still working through the data, but I'll put up an end of transit image shortly. Cheers,
  22. Good luck with adding more Ha Peter, but I would say don't overdo it. Of the 3 versions I have seen, i.e. Rogelio's, Daniel's APOD and yours, I think yours has the most natual look, not that there's anything natural about images like this. What I mean is that to me the balance between the galaxy and the Ha sirus in your image is just right, with neither one overwhelming the other. It really highlights your exellent processing skills. Cheers,
  23. It's a superb image Peter. I first saw this Ha detail in an image by Rogelio Bernal Andreo (of Deep Sky Colours fame) posted on Astrobin back in 2014 https://www.astrobin.com/134660/B/. Rogelio suggested that it may have been the first time anyone captured this detail, but who knows..... Regardless, your's is a stunning confirmation that it is real.
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