Pete Presland

The early mornings are a beautiful sight at the moment, always my favorite time of the day at any time of the year.

With the current weather around, any view is going to be a bonus!

These are a couple of images from a few years back, of the same active area when activity was plentiful. White light on the left, H/A on the right. Much more detailed than you will see through the eyepiece though.

Looking forward to this, just hope the weather is kind. I have decided to view/image it from my mum's. Decent views from the beginning until around 3.30 so just past mid point.

Interesting seeing the sketches especially, thanks for sharing.

We have LED lights fitted down our road recently, it certainly seems to have helped a little. The town in general is abysmal. The amount of businesses that light their premises up all night with dozens of lights, its seems crazy purely on a financial level.

Very nicely reported and a very interesting link. No wonder i couldn't see C/2017 T2 through my 20x80's the other morning. I didn't realize it was so faint.

I also use a zoom eyepiece, certainly very convenient to carry around. When i first bought my old PST, i did try a few different eyepieces and could not see much difference in what was visible through many of them. It is very quite at the moment, even in H/A unfortunately. I do love to see a large Sunspot in white light though. So as soon as the activity picks up it will be well worth getting a filter to view them. When the seeing is particularly good its so interesting to see the fine detail in the Umbra and Penumbra.

Using Firecapture allows the user to take a flat before the imaging run and apply it as the data is captured. The method is very simple, especially for the mosaics i do. I defocus, set the histogram to 50-70%, capture flat field. When you capture your data the flat is automatically applied. You have do a new flat whenever the imaging train is altered.

I didn't realise it was so low for you, Jupiter and Saturn have been the same for us in the UK.

Reading through the thread under the advert, there is question asking about the English version in September. The response is "still working on it"

I don't think there is much choice of books dedicated to just planetary imaging. I would quite like to read this one though. Damien Peach also has a few DVD's out on the subject as well. https://www.planetary-astronomy-and-imaging.com/en/planetary-astronomy-the-book/

Hi welcome to SGL from Pete in Biggleswade 🙂

Hi welcome to SGL from Pete in Biggleswade :-)

Super slim crescent Moon just after Sunset, not the easiest thing to spot from the garden. Something very peaceful about this view, even in the middle of the town!

Beautiful Moon rising over the freshly cut corn fields, just a stones throw from town. Nothing complicated here just a single DSLR shot on a tripod.

Superb 1st light, what a cracking image!

I also have a C9.25 and the views can be at first glance underwhelming, even of the brighter DSO's. Dark skies are obviously the best help, but filters are can improve most nebula's. Expectation is another thing that can dampen the views, even the mighty Orion nebula looks nothing like the photos. The more time you spend observing an object, the more you see. As other have said, i also do not use my focal reducer much, there are not many objects you need it for.

Looks very good on my Laptop, a beautifully peaceful scene!

Its been a while since i switched to Autostakkert, so my memories of Registax is a little blurry. Are you using alignment "dots" for your alignment or boxes?

Some decent detail visible there, how were the seeing conditions?

Super set of images as always.

Fingers crossed for the cloud/weather, just some decent gaps please!

Lovely fine details visible there.

Nice to get something especially this time of the year.