Pete Presland

Good looking disc there, a filter wheel is very useful when imaging Venus. Saves a lot of messing around when switching from UV to IR filters. 

I have tried the dyadic setting before on Jupiter, but always found the end result a little "blotchy" (not sure that is the correct description)

Could be interesting to try it on my data from the 17th which i thought was quite good.

Nice end result, with the lowered Gamma setting. 

Excellent start with that set up, looks like some subtle shading visible with the Lumicon #47 and IR-Cut combo

Venus from Monday 17thApril in very good conditions. Captured at just after 6pm in daylight, using the shed and a garden chair to block the sun 🙂 

Captured with C9.25, ASI290mm, x1.8 Barlow, Baader UV Venus filter. best 20% of 25000 frames captured. Stacked in A/S3 and lightly processed in IMppg and enlarged in CS2.

Also did a quick  run with the 807 filter which i will post shortly.

Very nice Kostas, i thought the seeing on the 21st was pretty good from Bedfordshire early that evening. 

Some nice subtle shading visible there Stuart, i certainly think using the shroud would be good idea as well.

Thanks for all your work  👍

Excellent image Kostas, some decent cloud detail visible.

Looks very good Neil, some very nice details visible there.

Very nice Luke, some nice details visible there.

3 hours ago, Ags said:

What are the dimensions? What sort of wood did you use? Is the floor a solid slab (how thick?)or is the pier separate? 

The dimension is 1.8m x 1.8m square, height is 5ft to the top of the sides. I choose this size simply because of cost, i could source feather edge timber to clad it which was 3.6 metres long, so it was simply cut in half.  I would like a bigger size to be honest, it is a bit small.

The frame is just softwood, the cladding as mentioned above is feather edge board.

The floor is a concrete base around 3-4 inches thick, but on a layer of hardcore rubble.

The pier is separate and bolted into the concrete.

It was and still is bit of a game changer due to the quickness of setting up and closing down at night. That said the location has got worse over the 12 years, due to tree growth, light pollution and the altitude of the planets in recent years.

2 minutes ago, Ags said:

It looks fabulous! Well done!

Any questions please ask away 🙂 

The observatory now looks a little cluttered and small with 13 years of buying and selling. I have added a few layers of old rubber backed matts that have come from the house. I also lined the inside walls with (free) MDF panels, the roof was also lined with plywood and felt to stop condensation. This has unfortunately made the roof a little to heavy. The frame that roof slides on will need replacing within the next couple of years i think.

I then added a pier a short while after as the tripod got in the way and i wanted to try imaging DSO's

The finnished obsy in 2010, complete with Mak 180 "planet killer" 🙂 

I added "turnbuckles" to retain the roof when closed and allow it to slide open when required.

Those of you who were around here in 2010, might remember the £250 obsy build thread (or probably not 🙂 )

But as i was recently asked for some info regarding it @Ags , i thought it might be nice to revisit and add a couple of up to date images.

The build was a simple frame on a concrete base with a roll on roll off roof, i am no carpenter but i found with some planning it was relatively straight forward.

That's a beauty, been clear blue skies all day here while at work. Now thick grey cloud as soon i got home, that looks like the biggest i have seen since around the Solar max!

Sounds like a great 1st light, especially with now issues and a nice evenly illuminated disc. Always helps that there is plenty of activity to view as well. 

22 hours ago, neil phillips said:

That will all change late august if you have a go Pete. Over 50 degrees its going to be fun

Cheers

Definitely something to look forward to 

I have seen and image Mercury a few times, never managed anything more than the Phase showing though. Uranus,  i did capture the polar region in an image a few years back.

Nicely captured, the phase is showing very well.

Very nice details visible there Kostas, love seeing the UV Venus images, difficult to capture but worth the effort.

Thick grey stuff here unfortunately.

Always worth have a play with old data, especially during the quite planetary imaging periods. Does feel ages since i had a session worthy of any discussion.