Littleguy80

Thanks Frank. I love summer time observing

Thank you, John! I didn’t know you were venturing into the dark side Of course, and ask questions too. You’re bound to think of things that I haven’t

I’ve recently got my first DSLR, a Canon 250D. I’ve been wanting to try some Milky Way photography. Using a Samyang F2.8 14mm lens, I took a 20 second exposure at ISO1600. All editing was done in Affinity Photo. As you might guess, my processing skills are still in their infancy! I’m sure that I made a plethora of mistakes but I’m fairly happy with the end result. I stopped and went back to the beginning in the processing more times than I can remember! Any hints, tips or suggestions greatly appreciated

With my dob I have a clicklock extension tube that I screw the filter into. I can then change eyepieces without moving the filter. On my frac, I screw the filter into the diagonal which again allows for eyepieces changes without moving the filter from eyepiece to eyepiece. I've only ever tried it with with an HB filter but it's worth a shot with UHC filter.

Friday was an exciting day as my 10mm Delos arrived. I have a 9mm Lunt XWA which is a great 100 degree eyepiece but lacks in sharpness and contrast compared to my favourite 9mm ortho (BGO). I've been pondering for quite awhile whether to sacrifice some FOV to get better contrast and sharpness. The 10mm Delos is my experiment to see how that works out in practise. It was after midnight before I got out with the 10" dob. I spent some with Jupiter and Saturn to start with. Initially, I struggled with the eye relief on the Delos but then I discovered the twist up mechanism and all was well. On Saturn, the first thing that grabbed me was that I could easily pick out Rhea and Dione with the Delos. A good sign. After that I moved onto some DSO's, M71 and then M27. I added the Lumicon UHC filter to M27. The mag 11 star on the corner of the dumbbell seemed to really pop in the Delos when compared to the Lunt. Comet C/2017 T2 and a collection of galaxies in Ursa Major all showed well. M51 showing the slightest hint of spiral arms in the TV eyepiece. A tantalising hint of what this eyepiece may show under dark skies. I finished up my eyepiece testing on M13 and it's companion galaxy NGC 6207. The propellor in M13 put in an appearance which was great to see. Looking overhead the Milky Way was very clear for my suburban skies. I wandered inside to grab the camera and took some photos. Taking the camera with me, I strolled out into the street to see if I could find a place to shoot the Milky Way with Jupiter and Saturn. I then spotted some lovely Noctilucent clouds on the horizon so starting walking a little further to try and get a good shot of them. Ended up walking over a mile, meeting a hedgehog who I assume was just getting back from the pub. As I returned back to my house, I spotted that Mars was well risen. With the time now around 2:30am, I spent 10 minutes or so with the red planet. I was able to see some nice dark features on the surface and a light area on the bottom of the planet which I took to be a polar ice cap. Great way to finish the night. Finally crawled into bed at 3am. Pictures below. I'm still a beginner, especially with processing images but I'm improving.

Here’s my SkySafari list of HB targets. Some well known targets can reveal some extra detail when viewed through an HB filter. I’m sure you wrote an excellent report on doing just that with M42, John. H-Beta Targets.skylist

Best way. As observers we form part of the system and there’s a great variety in our own optics and observing skills. That’s why there are no rules, only broad guides as to what to use. I use my filters across a wide range of exit pupils, even over 8mm (40mm eyepiece in my 10” dob). When you experiment you can find some quite unexpectedly successful combinations. I observed Barnard’s Loop in my 10” dob, 40mm Aero eyepiece and Astronomik HB filter. With regards to light pollution, for fine detail you need dark skies but brighter objects can certainly be noticeably improved under moderately light polluted with an OIII or UHC in my experience.

I wasn't out last night but Monday night I had some great timing. Was going back and forth between Jupiter and Saturn. Noticed something on the limb of Jupiter. Over the next 5 minutes or so I watched as Io slowly emerged from behind the big planet. It was awesome. Really made my night. Can't wait for a good transit. It's great to follow the shadow.

I’d be interested in your thoughts on this one, Gerry, if you decide to try one. I’ve seen a couple of comparison reports on the APM and Docter. The Docter, unsurprisingly, comes out on top but the APM is rated closely and is considered very good value given the price difference.

Hi, many thanks for the response. I’ll gove startools a try

I'm still in the learning phase of image processing. After watching Nik Szymanek's excellent talk, I picked up Affinity Photo for my Mac. I also bough Dave Eagle's guide to processing with it which is also excellent. The barrier I have hit is plugins! So far Dave has recommended AstroFlat Pro and Deep Sky Colours plugins, neither of which are available on Mac. I have got the trial of Gradient Xterminator working though. There seems to be lots of other tools around that are available for Mac. I don't want to go down the routine of running Windows on my Mac so I'd appreciate any suggestions on which software to use alongside Affinity Photo for processing.

Everything I’ve read puts it at mag 20 so will out of range sadly

Thanks Paul. Makes sense. I checked the ISS path afterwards and saw it wasn’t supposed to be there. It was certainly an unusual sight.

Last night my daughter and I watched First Man, the movie on Neil Armstrong in the years leading up to the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. Very enjoyable. We took a quick peak at the rising full Moon through my binoculars. I also showed her the craters Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins in my Moon Atlas. A good history home schooling lesson I though The main point of this post is that afterwards I stepped outside and looked up. There’s the ISS I thought, luck timing! Then I noticed that there was something much fainter just behind it. The more I looked the whole path it was following seemed to be lit up with fainter objects. I then thought Starlink satellites but there was too many objects and too close. At least based on previous experience of observing them. There was only one object that was really bright. The object was going roughly west to east. I observed this from Norwich around 11:50pm (5th June). Joining the dots, it appeared that something reentered the atmosphere and burnt up. I actually checked the news to make sure the ISS was ok! Did anyone else spot this? I can’t think of ever observing anything quite like this before.

Very nice, Stu. I'm glad you felt inspired to get the DSLR out The focus is definitely the trickiest part. I'm always feel a bit disappointed by the sharpness of the images compared to the view through the eyepiece.

Got a 10 minute gap in the clouds. There's a number of small spots with the main spot now. Was a bit more of struggle to get an image today. More of a breeze and seeing not so good.

Picture of my setup from the weekend. I’m using the canon app as remote shutter.

Thanks Stu. Today’s clear spell was against the forecast so you never know. It looks like it should be around for a few days to come.

Thanks Mark. Sure was. I recently acquired an entry level DSLR. I connected that to the HW via a T-Ring. I still feel a bit clueless with it but am pleased with the results so far.

Thick cloud all day and then around 18:00 the Sun appeared. I got a nice look at AR2765. Hooked the camera up for a quick picture. I'm not astrophotographer so forgive the dodgy processing

Yep, using a wedge. Someone asked that question on her post so I was able to explain wedge use

After work this evening, I sat and enjoyed some white light solar observing. I always use my observing hood as I find it helps me to see more detail. Checking my phone afterwards, I discovered my wife had posted the following on Facebook. On the upside, no one suggested my face being hidden was a good thing 🤣

Are the articles available online or can those issues be ordered? Question for those of us who foolishly didn’t buy AN already 😳

Snap. Looking forward to learning my way around it. Many thanks to Nik and the organisers for a fantastic talk

Looking in WL I can see some nice facula near the limb. I can see a dark spot just behind it so looks like a new AR is on the way. Anyone else see this? Would an AR normally follow a large prom like was reported yesterday?