Swoop1

Great image Alex- I feel I could almost reach out and cradle your moon in the palm of my hand.

Transparency on the evening of 30th November was fantastic but seeing was very sketchy. I did three captures that night and processed the first two as the best 20% of 2000 frames. These have proved to be marginal at best. I tried this one at 10% and the detail is better. Not great but I like the way the setting sun has picked out the western face of the Montes Alpes. Celestron C6 SCT- HEQ5PRO, ZWO ASI 290MC. Stacked in Autostakkert3! with levels, exposure and saturation adjusted in GIMP.

|Something like a small pet warm mat may work? I've seen them mentioned elsewhere on the forum for condensation reduction.

Cobbled together from a dismantled chest of drawers. Only cost me a handful of screws.

The little lecturn to raise my laptop to standing height- so much easier to focus when the screen is at a vierwable height.

Welcome aboard @FlaviusYNP Beautiful images. I do really like the landscape/ skyscape images. I guess I don't have to tell you how lucky you are to live where you do. We spent a few days in Yellowstone a couple of years ago, just before the park closed for the winter. One of the worlds spectacular settings.

Cracking image Kostas. Re the NEB feature- are you refering to the 'Little Red Spot' in your image?

Crater Proclus captured on the evening of 24th November 2023 Best 20% of 2000 frames Celestron C6 SCT/ HEQ5PRO/ ZWO ASI290MC Autostakkert!3 and GIMP for processing.

Paul, I will quite happily go with your planet design proposal as long as Slartibartfast subs to do the fjords.

I like that a lot!

Best 50% of 2000 frames. Celestron C6 SCT, ZWO ASI290MC, HEQ5PRO. Stacked in Autostakkert!3 and levels tweaked in GIMP. I struggle to get the colours looking right but I'm quite pleased with the detail.

Thank you Paul

More product from my session a few nights ago. RVO Horizon ED72, Sony a6300 set at ISO3200. LP filter. 30 x 30sec lights, 30 x 1.6s flats, 10 x 10sec darks. Stacked in DSS, histogram stretch in Siril and levels etc. tweaked in Gimp. Far from perfect but I am happy to reveal the nebulosity for the first time. I have no idea what has caused the darker ellipse near the centre of the image...

M33 through the RVO Horizon 72ED and Sony a6300 set at ISO3200. 30 x 30s subs with flats, darks and bias. This time I used Siril for the full stacking process plus histogram stretch etc so it demanded Biases. Levels tweaked in Gimp. As I learn the art of processing I hope to be able to improve the look of the images and lose some of the grainy effect.

No one likes a show off!

So, I had clear skies and fantastic views of the moon- on Mondy 6th and Tuesday 7th November 2023. For Wednesday 8th November 2023 the skies above me were predictably absolutely socked in and dispensing preciptitation. This morning, the moon looks gorgeous. 😠

Here is an improved M31 capture on the new 72ED. This time via the Sony a6300. 30 x 30s subs with flats, darks and bias. Still not got the hang of things like darks and bias as I can still see noise and glow. I also found that I need to expose darks, flats and bias frames before parking the scope as the Sony auto corrects frame orientation so, on a couple of other targets, the frames flipped from landscape to portrait..... Stacked in DSS, tweaked in Siril and GIMP.

Spent some time this evening grabbing data on M31, 33 and 45. My big toes have turned to ice.

I diarised my pier installation on this thread- My foundation was intended to be 600 x 600 x 600 and came close. The pier was a commercial one that I bought second hand. I mountd the top plate to the pier using 4 x M16 bolts I think. The Rat Cage is only about 4" high so very solid.

But the later deposits- where do they come from? I expect some is from redistrbution of material by the elem,ents but, more material arrives on earth from space every day surely?

I juts read a news article about the discovery of a roman road under a garden near Stirling- the road surface was beneath about a meter of earth. This got me to thinking- dangerous, I know, as most archeological sites, which often expose ancient surface features, involve digging down some distance. Does this mean that over time, the earth is expanding in circumference?

Looks great to me @Rusted. I’m more than happy for folk to improve my data.

Best 30% of 1000 frames. Celestron C6 SCT and ASI290MC on HEQ5PRO. Stacked and sharpened in Autotakkert!3 and cropped in Paint.net. When I set up, the sky was perfectly clear but the transparency deteriorated as the session progressed. I thought I would stick at it though. This is the last capture of 5 so the conditions were the worst.

That is a damn fine image Rodd! Lots of detail and easily definable stars. A couple of distant galaxies to boot.

Waxing moon over Valletta Bastion. 5th October 2023. Sony a6300, stock lens at 50mm. ISO100, f11, 1/160sec. Microsoft photo for spot removal only