Craney

Well, I thought I would post this here as well as on my original thread since it constitutes some DIY astronomy, although it is embarrassingly crude and rough edged as compared to the projects people list on here. The novel design feature which might promote ideas is the use of A4 lever arch files. We all have them and they tend to collect dust in the spare room and then get thrown out. I noticed that they are about the same width as a mini laptop ( Panasonic Toughbook in my case) and have that articulation that lends itself to an adjustment before you commit to the final shape. Here are some pics. I don't think NASA will be bothering me soon over the design, but they would appreciate the high thermal reflectivity characteristics of that cheap silver sided duct tape. Cost. (No new materials bought outright.) ....... about 30p of tape. Hope this might be of use to any frustrated Solar imagers. Sean.

So curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to have a search around for any bits of scrap material to fashion a solar-shade. I dug out a couple of A4 Lever arch files that just matched the width of my Tough-book laptop. Fast-forward......Sharp knife, scissors and a few meters of silver sided duct tape. There you go..... cost ...errr.... about 30p of tape. Now then, what about these clouds.......

...a mere £800..... Just wait til you research the words..."Takahashi" and "Astrodon" Welcome to SGL. (Savings Gone Long-ago ) Enjoy the spectacle of it all.

I can overcome tiredness, low altitude, streetlights.... but the weather !!!!....... oh dear..... ... Atypical for July. to say the least.... Patience,Craney...patience !!!!

Absolutely right. From UK skies the planets are not favourable at the moment. The Sun is quite. There is not much astro dark around for the Northern latitudes. The weather is generally cloudy and wet ...err Summer?!!. The Moon spends too much of its time 'almost' full and not that interesting..... and don't mention encroaching light pollution and StarLink....... Let's celebrate the fact we have a rare and noteworthy celestial event. " We choose to observe the comet in this week and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; "

Hmmm... now tempted to build my own..... I like the 'letter-box' design of @Steve Ward mentioned in the reply above. I would have to be careful to get the right viewing angle for the screen, otherwise you might end up not seeing all four corners. Since seeing this, I've felt it reminded me of something. At first I thought RoboCop.... then Back to the future .... but then the penny dropped...

Thanks @Steve Ward I will check out your creation. Re: remote control......The focuser on the PST might be difficult to motorise..... along with the etalon rubber ring tuner and the DS thumbwheel !!... three motor drives !! .... although I have seen people have a go at control from the eyepiece end using rods and wheels. For the time being, I'll work on a screen shade and mark#1 finger fiddling technology. sean.

Thanks @johninderby Only £3 ....... useful as a box as well.... in all seriousness, to store the increasing number of solar accessories. Thanks @JamesF Yes, you are spot-on with the reflected glare comment. Thats why I have to hide in the shade of the shed, otherwise all I see is my rippling torso reflected in the screen. I like the idea of a viewer. Also I can pretend to be Mr Spock, viewing "strange new worlds........" Thanks guys. sean

... don't forget to get some NLCs as well.....

Hello everybody. I am wanting to fine tune my Solar imaging in the run up to the next Solar Maximum.... fews years to get it right !! ...... I have a Double-stacked PST. One issue I have is the focus and the sweet-spot tuning whist trying to peer at the laptop screen at the right angle to avoid the glare. I tend to sit in the shade of my shed if possible and reach out at arms length sideways to grapple with the adjustments on the scope and DS etalon. It is all a bit faffy. I was wondering if there was a 'known' quality product that would act as a Laptop Solar Shade to help out with the situation. ie. I could sit closer to the scope. Yes, I could velcro something together using some old dust-sheets and doweling rods, but .....well... Something along the lines of this..... Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Many thanks, Sean.

Gnarr-boo--hiss!!! I was up at 3.00, but missed it totally, even with binos. Must have been hidden in broad twi-light. My NE horizon is not too bad. Maybe my latitude counts against me at the moment. Well done everybody for seeing it and reporting back.

Alas... down wind of the tree ( due East) is my hand built shed. !!! The tree has put on about an extra 6ft in height over the last decade, but it is now more exposed to the prevailing winds, as a couple of Leylandii to the West were removed. Given the winds today, and the heavy coverage of leaves, nature might just do the job for me.

I could do with some chainsaw action at the bottom of the garden.... alas, tree doesn't belong to me... This is looking more or less South.... .

Can only suggest these. Look really nice, but have no first hand knowledge.... http://outsideology.com/home-farm-observatories/

Saw this thread and thought about your equipment. Quite a long thread !!!...might be somebody with similar goals to yourself in there somewhere. Sean.

Nice one......Took a moment to latch on to that one......

There yer go..... Especially good for double stars...

This may sound heretical ..... (speaking as a new-to-the-niche solar imager).... but, could a retailer provide a (paid-for ??) report on each unit with perhaps a sample solar image to demonstrate that it does indeed do what it 'says on the tin'. I've been tempted by the Quark, but like a few correspondents on here, would not be exactly sure if the thing is performing to the specification claimed by the manufacturer. Maybe I am not experienced enough to coerce the hardware into a maximum theoretical performance.....Ok, maybe not a maximum, but there should be an accepted agreed minimum. It seems that this product still generates a slight cloud of apprehension upon purchase ..... surely you cannot have a lucky-dip lottery associated with a piece of scientific equipment costing £1000 !!!! I for one would feel a lot more at ease in purchasing if I knew a seasoned solar viewer/imager had given the thumbs up on a specific unit. Is there is legal thing that states that retailers cannot open the packet and test the item before sale? Does this infringe warranty? Oh well..... shame really, on what should be an absolute barn-stormer of a product. <heavy-sigh>..... or am I being swayed unfairly by an internet 'perception' ? Sean.

Hi Mike, There are a few hurdles to be overcome when trying to get a decent image of a deep sky object. (DSO). I will try to highlight a few and tailor them to your situation. You are right to acknowledge the fact that the Mak will have a small field of view. It is not the most ideal of scopes for this particular job, even using the large chip on the 294mc, because the Mak has a long focal length and a high focal ratio. The images will be darker when compared to a 'faster' f-ratio telescope and subject to a lot more 'shake' due to vibrations in the system. The good news is that it is possible to take lots of very small exposure images and stack them to give a result, providing you go for a bright enough object, and there are enough of them out there to get you started. I think they call this 'Lucky Imaging' (?) or something like that. Now... the elephant in the room... as we say in the U.K. That mount. Being an Alt-Az it will track the stars/objects and keep them in the field of view, but it will also rotate the field of view as the night elapses. So processing the results will have to take this into account, you might get a weird spirally circular pattern of detail when you stack them. I have never used an Alt-Az mount for this purpose and so don't know how well it can be de-convoluted in the stacking program. The sturdiness and precision of the mount / tripod in terms of tracking and stability are also factors to consider as well. Not much point taking 10 second exposures of M13 if the whole image wobbles around every 2 seconds !! Ok...I hope I have not put you off. It is better to be aware that it is not going to be easy to avoid disappointment. Starting off tends to be one step forward, two steps backward. There are some very experienced astronomers on this site who will help out and advise. I'm sure a few will chip in and explain things better than I have. Another point to finish on. The zwo294c I think has a ROI (Region of Interest) capability and so can be used on planets and the Moon as well, so it is a good all round camera with a lot of capability. Hope this helps..... and good luck. Sean.

Ah, now I've done a bit of research. The Celestron 127 Powerseeker may not have a lockable focuser. This is an image I got from Amazon and it seems not to have a small knurled knob between the two circular focus adjusters. Check out this image of a Skywatcher focuser for a Newtonian... That does have the screw. This might be the source of some of your problems. The weight of the DSLR will pull the focuser slightly out of focus due to gravity. The Powerseeker is a budget scope and is most likely designed for visual where the weight of an eyepiece is not enough to significantly change the focus. Once you stick a big DSLR on !!! things start to shift. A lockable focuser would combat this. So in a way, even your best efforts at focus will be circumvented by this effect. mmmm....don't know much about Mac's. I think it might be harder to find suitable software that is as 'developed' for astro work as the windows based stuff. Search the web is my best advice, I'm sure somebody,somewhere has had the same issue. Remember that your movies may have up to 1000 frames. ( the stacking idea uses the principle that a small percentage of the whole capture will have significantly better seeing and clarity than the rest. Hence the programs analyses and rejects the rubbishy frames.... well.... orders them in terms of quality. More frames captured usually provides a higher number of the better frames). PhotoShop and your Mac may choke a bit with a 1000 frames to chew through !! That's not to say it isn't possible though. There are some freeware converters online that will change .MOV to .AVI. I don't know if .AVI is the best, it just seems to be the one a lot of people use, and consequently software tends to use it as default. Ok. Good luck. Sean.

Yes Marv. Oops!!, forgot to include that slightly important fact. Yes the AVI files can be stabilised, stacked and processed to give some quite remarkable detail considering the wobbly, jelly of an image that is dancing before your eyes. The Moon as an object is generally 'easier' to get crisper images because it is brighter and has features that you have a better chance of determining a near focus. ie. crater walls, shadow lines etc. With a DSLR, Lunar photography gives you more flexibility in the ISO and exposure settings. Saying that, even the Moon suffers from atmospheric turbulence when you start to crank up the magnification. The same advice regarding stacking video footage can be applied to the Moon as well, and some of the really stunning shots of the small surface features nearly always rely on video capture.

For the planets, it can be a difficult job getting a good focus due to atmospheric turbulence and the high magnification of the system doesn't help stability of the image. I use a Bahtinov mask to achieve best possible focus on a bright nearby star. If the camera has 'live-view' and a ROI zoom function then all the better. Then lock the focuser. ( keep the mask on ..... the telescope, not you Batman...) just in case the tightening procedure shifts the focus. Then back on the planet. With a DSLR, it is going to be a fine balance between the grain and low light levels of high ISO to the blur factor introduced by longer exposures on lower ISO. If this does not give you any real improvement, then.... Either, check if your Nikon has a Video capture function off of the 'live-screen' mode. Think I read somewhere that you can take high frame rate movies with a DSLR.... OR......get a dedicated planetary cam and record AVI's (videos) that can be processed later. A second hand ZWO120MM or QHY5 will come it at about £100. Hope this helps. Sean.

The difficult area is an item that has been used once . Sellers sometimes quote the terms "perfect condition" ...errrr ....well, if it has been used once then it may be in very good condition, but it isn't perfect. It becomes a real judgement call on what you feel the true sale-able value is. Does opening the box necessitate a reduction of 1/3rd the cost price ?? Hmmmm?? Not always....tough one. Personally, if the selling price is above the 80% mark for such a 'perfect, used item", I would rather pay a bit more and get the full warranty and consumer protection a retailer would provide.

Up here in North Yorkshire we seem to be getting an unfair amount of NLLC ( Nasty Lurking Low Cloud) at the moment. You have got the nice ripple effect in the electric blue. Well done.

That's a great picture. I'd be more than happy seeing the comet just like that.