geoflewis

I saw the start of this thread last week, but since then have been mostly too busy for SGL, or indeed much astro at all. Really glad that I found this again as it is a brilliant thread, stuffed with superb images. What a great read....👍 Cheers and Happy New Year

Me too

A superb image and description John

Nice capture, but curious why it’s posted under solar? Geof

OMG Pieter, this without doubt is the most stunning image of M31 that I've seen, the detail is remarkable. Then I had a look at your website and it is full of equally stunning images. The detail seen in your B&W and inverse B&W images could keep me absorbed for years to come..... Thanks for sharing your work, Geof

Something else to look out for with Jupiter are the mutual occultations of it's 4 main moons, which happens approximately every 6 years, when the orbital plane of the four Galilean moons is edge-on with that of the Sun and Earth. This last happened in 2014/15 and will happen again in 2021. Here is a gif animation that the I made from a series of images when inbound Europa was partially occulted by the outbound Io on 26 Feb 2015, together with a still image of almost maximum occultation which occured at 22:21 UT. The gif has an elapsed time of about 75 minutes and starts with Io and it's shadow in transit across Jupiter, then Euorpa appears inbound from the right. They're not my best ever images, but they are fun events to observe and these fairly rare mutual moon occultations only take a few minutes to complete, so you need to be ready for them. Unfortunately the bad news for 2021 is that Jupiter will be very low down and close to the Sun in the dawn skies, however, the good (well better) news is that these mutual events occur over several months, so with a bit of forward planning, perseverance and clear skies, there is a possibility of seeing one or two of them from the UK in the March/April 2021 time frame. Regards, Geof

Hi Chris, Thanks for the link to David's blog. I see his was LRGB, so I think that you're right, adding Ha might boost the signal somewhat. I'm not sure when I'll get around to it, but I'd like to give it a try. Yes, my skies here in South Norfolk are pretty dark, being on the Bortle 3/4 boundary, with readings well into the 21s SQM when no Moon and of course no clouds are about. That is a rare combination at the best of times, but the past 2 months have been terrible. I live on the edge of a rural village with no immediate street lighting within half a mile and only a couple of small light domes from nearby small (~10k population) towns 4 miles away and a slightly larger one from Norwich, but that is 15 miles away and in a direction to the NE where I can't image anyway due to the neighbour's trees - they probably actually help by shielding the LP from that direction 😀. Cheers, Geof

To me that's a cracking M45 Stuart, definitely a bonus if it was just test data 👍. I also like the way you presented the sub image inspections, so what tool(s) did you use for that? Geof

Superb image, why would you even think of packing it in when you produce goodies like this? I know, just frustration speaking. Great blog post BTW and enjoyed a quick trip through a few of the many other superb images on your website. Cheers, Geof

That's a sweet PN image Chris and not a target I've seen previously. I wonder how well it will show in LRGB or HaRGB, so maybe one for me to consider in future with the C14. I also prefer V1. Cheers, Geof

What a cracking image Martin, I see the grumpy old man (thought I was looking in a mirror) and the phantom, but not the Yorkie, but then you've confused me with the difference between counter clockwise and anti-clockwise... 🤔 Cheers, Geof

Only just seen this cracking image. Lovely processing, very well done Martin. Geof

That's a cracking image Carole. I've not heard of, nor seen the pumpkin nebula previously, but I definitely see a somewhat ethereal, alien looking face in there.... 😱. Nice one, Geof

Having imaged this target a couple of months ago in Ha, I decided to return to it and try for an HaLRGB version. My previous Ha comprised 1.5 hours of 5 min subs, which I've since learnt isn't long enough subs for NB, so I shot another 3 hours at 15 min subs. In addition I captured 9x10 subs for each of RGB and 18x10m L. After grading and stacking the Ha, I used 9 of the 12 and then added them to the previous Ha. After post processing this is what I got... Next I processed the Ha as R together with the RGB and then layered the Ha using a soft light combine to enhance the detail to get the following L(Ha)HaRGB result... As can be seen there is virtually no colour in the stars, maybe just a tad of yellow showing, but the blue stars are all saturated, so other than the red nebulosity, I don't see much advantage over the mono Ha only image. In my view, the Ha on it's own shows much more structure in the nebulosity. I probably need to shoot much shorter subs for RGB star colours, so I might try for that another night. I processed the 3 hours of L that I captured, but couldn't see how it would add anything to the final image, so haven't used it. I really struggle with HaRGB processing, so any feedback and comments are very welcome. Thanks for looking. Geof

It looks pretty good to me Dave, though not the colour palette I’m used to seeing with NB on this target, but then I’m not a NB imager, so what do I know.... 🙄 I still need to process the HaLRGB data that I’ve collected on Mel 15, though I’m also interested to see how the new 12x15m Ha stack compares with my previous 19x5m stack, so I’ll probably start with that. Cheers, Geof

Thanks Mark, I really appreciate your advice, but really I wouldn't know where to start; I know absolutely zip about this technology other than having to use it and even then I'm something of a philistine... Cheers, Geof

Thanks Mark, but I don't think you understood my original post - I can see that what you wrote was all English, but it might as well have been Martian.... I haven't a clue what that meant, sorry 🙄 Geof

Thanks Steve and @spillage, I think I’m going to leave it alone and see what happens. If SGP stops working then I’ll reconsider my options. I’m still on SGP 2 BTW, as it does everything that I need. I’m very much from the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t tix it...’ school. If I need to upgrade to Win 10, I’ll either get someone to do that for me, or buy another refurbished Win 10 laptop, from Morgan Computers, or somewhere like that, which is where the current Obs laptop came from last year. Cheers, Geof

OMG I hadn't picked up on this SGP/Win 7 announcement, so I just checked it out. I find computers (other than just using them) a complete nightmare, not made any better in that the brand new £1300 Win 10 pro, gaming spec laptop that I just bought for home use and astro processing was faulty and I've only just received the replacement last week after many hours of tech support over a few weeks, which confirmed that the original was a dud...!! As I'd purchased 3 years premium tech support (turned out to be such a good decision) with the laptop, I even got them to remotely set up the replacement laptop to be sure that it wasn't me that f**ked up the original...!! The prospect of me having to upgrade my old observatory laptop's Win7 to Win10 terrifies me - I'm sure it's a piece of cake for you techy folks, but for me this is is a disaster waiting to happen.....😱. Steve, I note that you compiled a disc image of your Win 7 machine before loading Win 10, so is that an absolute requirement, or were you just taking extra precautions - I have no idea how to do that, not even sure I understand what it is.... 🙄. What happens if I do nothing and just continue with Win 7? A very anxious Geof 😰

Nice early transit capture Adrian. I also had to resort to views with binos and images taken with a handheld DSLR and 200mm zoom. Well done, Geof

What a lovely series of images showing the progress of Mercury across the Sun. West Norfolk was obviously much clearer than South Norfolk for the start and early stages of the transit. Really good to see that first contact . Well done, Geof

Excellent images David, Well done, Geof

Frustrating experience here in South Norfolk, but I did manage some fleeting views through clouds using my 15x70 bins with home made WL filters. Then later the sky cleared a bit so I had a go at imaging with one of the bino's WL filters hand held in front of my Nikon 200 zoom, camera also hand held. I had to experiment with ISO and exposure times, but eventually managed this, which is a stack of 2 images manually stacked in PS to improve contrast, then cropped.... Clouds were still running across the lower edge of the Sun, but I'm pleased I got something, as not long later it was fully clouded over again.

Good point 🤔

Hello Deisler, Fisrtly, welcome to the forum. Well done for considering what the viewing conditions might be from your rear garden. It looks to be fairly small, but have you also estimated what altitude objects would need to be to see them over the houses to the S/SW and trees to the NE. In particular are you able to locate and identify Polaris (the Pole Star) to the N as that will greatly help you set up your scope. As others have said it is worth downloading a planetarium tool like Stellarium and configuring it for your location, as that will help you identify what is visible at any time for any night of the year. It seems to me that you may have good views to the E/SE, so any targets that are rising during the night may be visible in that direction. Furthermore the Moon and the brighter planets, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and sometimes Mars may well be bright enough for you to locate even from your light polluted front garden. Jupiter, Saturn and Mars are low down targets currently and well past their best this year, but their altitude will improve over the coming years and Mars will be up around 40 degrees next year, so don't give up on seeing those. Good luck, Geof