Chefgage

I really like the idea of threatening someone with a half chewed bacon sandwich

I can't overstate how disappointing the view was. That sentence there what you wrote is the main reason I switched from visual astronomy to astrophotography. I was using a skywatcher scope at the time 8" apparture, 1200mm focal length. Even with this scope, nebula, galaxies etc are nothing more that fuzzy blobs. Unfortunately that is really all you will see with a naked eye. Although sky quality, less light pollution, better optics, larger apparture etc. all will help to tease out some detail but nothing like what your photos show. That's just how our eyes work I'm afraid. What I started to understand is that although the view might not be that impressive, spare a thought to how long those photons have been traveling before they get to your eye piece. Try using a manual scope to try and find as many galaxies, faint fuzzies etc, by using star charts and star hopping. That way it's more of a challenge. Or just give up on visual astronomy and stick to astrophotography. That's what I did and find it alot more enjoyable now.

@Elp @PhotoGav @vlaiv @Louis D @iantaylor2uk @Franklin@StevieDvd Thank you all for taking time to respond. I understand it now.

Thanks. Having re-read what I posted I was indeed confused (I am going with the amount of vodka drank:) ) UTC time has its place but not with what I was asking. Thank you for making understand.

Current situation. At home in the UK where I live at UTC 19:00 mars is at an altitude of 40'. I am currently away in Cyprus, mars is at an altitude of 16' at UTC 19:00. So the same time. I thought the further south you went the planet's would be higher in the sky? Am I wrong or is the the vodka that has made my brain not work

I will post up an overstretched stack later. Also you mention it appears greatly after an DBE in pixinsight. That is one of the first parts of my processing. I will post that up too. It's got me thinking now. I might just be assuming that my flats are ok and after DBE that is what it's supposed to look like. As I posted above I might take two sets of flats next time and do a side by side comparison. Only issue I have doing this is finding a way of doing a longer exposure flat as my light source is set on the lowest value to get me my usual 400ms flat.

I might have to take a couple of sets of flats next time. I aim for an adu of about 30000. With my led light panel and l-enhance filter this gives me an exposure time of 400ms. My lights seem to calibrate fine at this exposure time (this is using the 294mc-pro). Mentioned above at this low exposure time I might be limiting the amount I can stretch the image but my images seem to process ok (from my point if view). I might try taking two sets of flats and doing a side by side comparison using pixinsight (which is what I use for processing). The issue I see though is exposing for a couple of seconds is going to give me a very hight adu value though isn't it??

Interesting your ADU value. I read somewhere to aim for half way to the 65000 value so 32500 ish. That seems to give me good results. To get this value with an l-enhance filter my exposure time is 400ms. As others have said a longer exposure time is needed but I don't seem to need this? Unless I do have problems but I am fixing them when processing? Either way I will stick with what I do 🙂

I see. I must have got one of the good sensors then as I don't get any of them problems. I use a gain of 120 and using a flat led panel to take my flats. I use the lowest brightness settings in the panel and when using the l-enhance filter I use an exposure time of 400ms for my flats (the asiair gives me a time of 500ms for an auto exposure flat) but I find that a tad too long based if the graph. I guess I can count myself lucky then.

Sorry to jump on this thread but what issue are you having with the 294mc pro? I was not aware there was an issue with it. Mine calibrates fine. Just wondering if an issue may present itself at some point.

I use a zwo asi294mc pro camera and agree with what you say. I know some people say aim for 3 seconds for the flat darks as that will give you the correct flat dark. But I always use 0.4 seconds with the flat led panel on a low setting.

Just setting my alarm for tomorrow morning. I was up for the last one Uranus I think it was. It was clear until about 3 minutes to go and the clouds rolled in :(

Captured this over two nights back in the summer. Processed the first night and posted it on here. Only just got round to processing both nights together. Capture information HEQ5 Pro mount Skywatcher 72ED Refractor ASIAIR pro ASI294mc-pro colour camera Optolong L-Enhance filter ZWO ASI120mm mini guide scope Gain 120 EXP 240s Lights 83 Darks 58 Flats 58 Flat Darks 58 Total exposure time 5 hours 32 minutes Captured over two nights. 05-08-2022 Moon below horizon 19-08-2022 Moon 86° 17' 45.7" from Target 51.9% Illuminated Stacked in DSS and processed in pixinsight NGC 6992 Uncropped NGC 6992 Cropped

If I understand you correctly, in sky safari click on search then tonight's best. That gives you a long list of targets and based on your location you can sort by rise time etc..

Not really looked into the specifics of the Artemis rocket. But comparing the launch to space X launches it seems a bit strange/embarrassing for NASA??? With space X seemingly launching every in other day with no issues but NASA cannot seem to get just one rocket in the air

Looks good apart from percentage cloud cover is not shown. I like to see this on a weather app. It's why I use XC weather as it shows an hourly percentage cloud cover.

When I use my canon DSLR that's the type of adapter I use

I use this one https://www.halfords.com/motoring/tools/garage-equipment/battery-chargers/halfords-6-in-1-jump-starter-power-pack-654898.html?istCompanyId=b8708c57-7a02-4cf6-b2c0-dc36b54a327e&istFeedId=367c5610-f937-4c81-8609-f84582324cd6&istItemId=wrirtqtpq&istBid=t&_$ja=tsid:|cid:17363835999|agid:|tid:|crid:|nw:x|rnd:2651873092412831121|dvc:m|adp:|mt:|loc:1007055&gclid=CjwKCAjw7eSZBhB8EiwA60kCWyY___s1_FKFGmZOjWRK23_2jTrPx_Dep4JZXs_E7hNNr9WACDtmaxoCfOsQAvD_BwE I power my heq5 pro mount, asiair pro, 2 dew bands, astro camera, guide camera, pegusus power supply all off this and it lasts a good few hours.

Sounds like a fantastic place.

I have the same scope. I try to use the focus lock but in my experience it does affect the focus when you tighten it up. I use a bahtinov mask and an asiair to focus. As you tighten up the focus lock you can see the focus slightly adjust.

Capture information HEQ5 Pro mount Skywatcher 72ED Refractor ASIAIR pro ASI294mc-pro colour camera Optolong L-Enhance filter ZWO ASI120mm mini guide scope Gain 120 EXP 180s Lights 76 (over two nights 60 and 16) Darks 20 Flats 20 Flat Darks 20 Total exposure time 3 hours 48 minutes minutes Moon below horizon Decided to re-process this one in a sort of hubble palette colour scheme.

Capture information HEQ5 Pro mount Skywatcher 72ED Refractor ASIAIR pro ASI294mc-pro colour camera Optolong L-Enhance filter ZWO ASI120mm mini guide scope Gain 120 EXP 240s Lights 36 Darks 29 Flats 29 Flat Darks 29 Total exposure time 2 hours 24 minutes Moon below horizon Stacked in DSS and Processed in Pixinsight Hopefully going to add more data to this when we get longer astro darkness.

This was taken hastily with my phone on the 17th June 2022 at 22:55