Dragon_Astro

Mars from the other morning, around 3:30am, seeing was very clear and steady and Mars was higher up.

SW 150P and ZWO ASI224

Celestron 2x Barlow

Before capturing Mars I wanted to catch at least part of the shadow transit of Io for an animation, but I missed it by a few minutes.

Never the less, I made the below GIF in Pipp  Excuse the two different shades of black sky, it didn’t look like that on my laptop lol

Was great to be out in the early hours, seeing all the winter targets swing back into view.

I’ve always loved seeing Orion return, usually greeted with a “hello old friend” on his chilly seasonal return.

Testing out my Zwo ASI482mc uncooled, on the SW 150P and HEQ5

Captured in SharpCap and stacked using  AsiStack (a great bit of software, much more simple to use than DSS). Only a tiny bit of processing needed in Astrosurface, cropping and levels.

Only 70 x 8s at unity gain 210.

No darks or flats, quick test afterall.

September was a good month here in west Wales, managed to get quite a few imaging sessions in.

Now we’re into October it’s all gone down hill 😆

6 minutes ago, Laurieast said:

I'm just looking at this 🤔   2.6.9
https://www.oldergeeks.com/downloads/file.php?id=3523

Edit: Nope, not working either. 

Awwwwww!! 😃😄

5 minutes ago, Laurieast said:

Try this:
http://www.stark-labs.com/downloads.html

Yeah that’s the one I’ve gone to for now, first version of PHD

Cheers

Has anyone tried to download phd2 recently?

Setting up a laptop with Astro software and none of the links to phd2 are working 🤷🏼‍♂️

1 hour ago, TheThing said:

That's a really good image in spite of the difficulties you faced.  Nicely done.

Thank you, it was frustrating having to wait for a break in the clouds.

Pleased with the amount of detail I captured and actually getting Io as a disk.

Yet to try Winjupo, don’t know how complicated it is? 🤷🏼‍♂️

Weather wasn’t great that night, lots of thin cloud scudding across Jupiter making capture difficult.

Finally got a break in the clouds around 11:30 and grabbed a 2min capture…30,000 frames.

Stacked 50% in AS3!

Wavelets and processing in Astrosurface 

ZWO ASI482

2x Vintage Celestron Barlow

SW150P on HEQ5

The other night the plastic tab snapped off my EQDir cable, now I’m wondering if I connect this to my HEQ5, will I be able to pull it out or will it be stuck in the mount socket? 

Great animation, really like how you can see Jupiters’ shadow cast onto Io

23 minutes ago, bingevader said:

Haverfordwest?! That's nearly in England, isn't it, not West Wales?!  

This was a little campsite just outside St. David's.

Not my usual abode, that's much further east, but still with M31 a naked eye fuzz on a clear night.

On topic! The star barn puts my shed to shame. A recent trip to the tip means that at least I can now get in it!

It’s near St David’s 😆

On 03/09/2022 at 19:43, bingevader said:

Diolch yn fawr!
But, (dare I say it!) it looks a bit cloudy!

Spent the last few days in west Wales.

The first night was crystal clear.

Incredible Milky Way (and M31).

Where in west Wales?

Haverfordwest here, Milky Way always visible through the summer 😊

I had the same issue when I first started planetary, not so long ago.

It’s not about focus or lack of adc, I put it down to a stacking issue.

When you place your alignment points, try to avoid putting them too close to the edge. If there’s too much black sky within the box, the stacking software can get a bit confused.

Absolutely marvellous 🙌🏻

That Mars looks great, fair amount of detail for something still so small hey

Was up at 3am, managed to get a good hour with the best seeing I’ve had yet I think, barely a ripple.

A slight breeze but it didn’t affect capture at all.

Had the 150P out on the heq5, rather than the 127 Mak.

Dropped my exposure times, as I think I had mine too long compared to what pro’s on here seem to use, and I think it paid off

Was getting frames rates close to 400fps, 60s sers

I’ve started using Astrosurface, as I went to download Registax recently and my laptop refused to as it wasn’t “secure”.

Astrosurface has all the wavelets, sharpening and much more tools compared to Registax.

Got an early night and set my alarm for 3am to catch these two in the same session. Jupiter was up high but Mars was coming over the top of the neighbours house, so the seeing was like boiling water.

SW 127 Mak + 2x Celestron Barlow

ZWO224MC

2 hours ago, neil phillips said:

Great Stuff Dragon. will check out any posts you do. Btw did the high power eyepiece trick work ? 

It sure did, with a bit of practice I think it’ll be the go to.

Saved myself some £££ forking out for a flip mirror

I was out in the early hours this morning imaging Jupiter too…

If mine turns out a fraction like yours I’ll be happy

I also followed your tip about using a high power eyepiece to centre first, to get the planet on the small chip.

Thank you John

Frames were stacked in Autostakkert and then the resulting file was then processed in Astrosurface.

For some reason my laptop won’t let me download Registax for security reasons, so I use the wavelets functions in Astrosurface.

Restacked with better alignment point placement, and a reduction in size and colour. Previous version was a bit too yellow.

55 minutes ago, knobby said:

You've done well there ! Banding on the surface and hints of Cassini division 👍🏻

Thank you 😊

Im going to put the data through AS! again, I’m sure I can get the stack better aligned.

Spreadsheets just sounds like evidence to me 😅

It negates sneaking the parcels in 😂

Here’s my first successful of capture of Saturn since I recently started my planetary imaging journey

Seeing wasn’t great, grabbing vids through the breaks in thin cloud.

Taken with my SW 127 Mak on an HEQ5. Celestron x2 SV Barlow.

ZWO224C

Around 2000 frames

Sharpcap for capture

Astrosurface for wavelets, colour and sharpening etc.