Vroobel

Yeah, a piece of plastic is missing in the socket. Check, if it stuck in your cable. It cannot work this way, even if you properly connect the cable it's no longer secure and can disconnect in the worst moment. Contact your seller. If the camera's warranty already expired you can contact any better phone repair shop. 

Ah, OK. Thanks. 🙂

The ADU value should be around 1/2 of ADU Max. For 16-bit sensors, the ADU Max is 65535, so 1/2 of ADU Max should be e.g. 32,000-33,000, while 30,000-35,000 is also good. The best way to check what is your ADU Max is to clip all pixels which means e.g. a 60s exposure with the scope lit by the panel or a day sky. Some programs inform about the ADU value of the picture. 

This is how guys from spaceweather.com called the two presently biggest sunspots. A piece of their image and the Earth size for comparison.

https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=21&month=06&year=2024

AR3712, AR3713 and AR3716 - 2024.06.22

Altair STARWAVE 102EDT F/11, Hercules Herschell wedge WL, Solar Continuum 10nm, ASI 678MC @ Celestron CGX;
500 frames of 5000, <1ms, gain 0, around 60 fps;
SharpCap, AutoStakkert!, AstroSurface, Affinity Photo;
Liverpool, poor seeing.

https://www.astrobin.com/ohqq1g/B/

It's one of the most clever ideas regarding the roll-off roof obsy. I like the roof sliding over your workshop (?) and the roof's construction.  👍

Thanks! 🙂 I forgot that I have similar big parasol. The sun fried me a bit today. I covered myself and partly the scope with a white bedsheet, but I had to solve the problem with focusing, so I'm partly reddish anyway. 😁

You can find a lot of branded and unbranded Vixen clamps in various colours. I have 5 red ZWO ones. 

Imaging yesterday (hopefully successful), visual solar astronomy today. First time the Hercules Herschel wedge works with my OVL bino and a 1.25" 10nm Solar Continuum filter. Also, an 1.25" Antlia ND3.0 filter is fitted. I'm going to test all my pairs with the wedge for first time: 25mm ED Starguiders (they works rather as a finderscopes), 18mm BCOs, 18mm BGOs, 9mm Genuine Abbe Orthos and 7mm Fujiyama Orthos. 

My 102ED F/11 required unscrewing it's originally fitted extension to reach a focus. Even with a WO 2x glass path corrector (Barlow?) it was still too long. I'm surprised, it wasn't necessary when I used an ND5.0 foil and a Baader T2 prism. Does it mean that the Herschel wedge has significantly longer light path than the simple prism? 

I will consider purchasing another 102ED F/11 and building an F/11 binoscope. 🤔

That's it! Recently I installed Ubuntu 24.04 Desktop on my old laptop, Windows 10 with updates just killed it. Now I use a Linux version of an RDP client which perfectly works with my AstroPC with NINA. 

That's why I prefer RDP and/or VNC. No payments, no clouds. 

Could you please explain what's a difference between the time-lapse (at night) and the night-lapse - in this case - and why you need two cameras? 

After a precise PA two nights ago the Sun imaging doesn't require too much attention. It's nice to come back to the day astrophotography being well prepared. 🙂

Yeah, I also didn't see it earlier.  😅  Here, in the UK (North West) it looks rather like below:

As it's a weather forecast for astronomers, the green shows you have four clear night skies in a row. I'm jealous...  😉

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

Then you should see an automated meridian flip with target platesolving. It will knock you off you chair. Literally if you sit too close. 🙃

 

 

Me? 🙂 I see it often in my garden, sometimes twice at the time, because I have two (three?) automated mounts now. Anyway, the GoTo and Plate Solve are really awesome pieces of robotics and maths. 

A few years ago I was developing my own system controlling a motorised Dobsonian. It was written in Python. I had to read nearly whole Jean Meeus' 'Astronomical Algorithms' book to understand enough the sky mechanics to write RA/Dec -> Alt/Az conversion formulas. It worked quite good. The GoTo and tracking were satisfying, but I met some problems with a physical inaccuracy, so I abandoned the project. I started building a heavy EQ fork mount and this was the thing that made my friends' and neighbours' jaws drop.  😁

1 hour ago, Stu said:

When I took my scope (FS-128 on Rowan AZ100 Goto) to show my daughter’s class, they nearly fell off their chairs when I made it Goto where Jupiter should be and thought it very cool that it was controlled by my phone.

I'm still impressed by the GoTo, it's a kind of robotics!  I felt a similar thrill when I modified my EQ5 by adding stepper motors and an OnStep controller, so what about building a mount from scratch? Friends, neighbours and their friends were speechless with shock. A lot of cables, screws, motors, etc...  

IMHO, the artefacts in the background don't look too good. I don't operate on the Seestar S50, so I'm not an expert, but the picture is better without this feature.

The fine focus side cannot be used. 

As I have both 2600MC and 2600MM (+ filters) I would pick the mono set. I was shocked how much details increased, even if I used 2" Askar FMA230. The mono set is a game-changer, if you are patient enough. Your scopes still can surprise you. 

On 13/06/2024 at 11:45, Vroobel said:

Just arrived thanks to @Hairycamel and the postman. 🙂 Like-new condition, everything works well. I already checked it by looking at neighbour's aerial and have to say that it's really OK if we take into account that it's a budget bino. Will check a night sky, but when?... 🤔

 

 

I made a second test of the binoculars tonight. I don't have a proper mount yet, so it was shaky, but I can say that stars are pinpoint and the bino is well collimated. I didn't find any significant CA or distortion at edges. Thanks again, @Hairycamel. 

Really, very nice! I have to try any trick with masks in the PI as a substitute of the layers. 

BTW, I used GradientCorrection in PI. It doesn't require any samples for the background modelling. According to original tutorials from PI, after a few steps I reached an even background across a whole image. 

Is there any chance for an unexpectedly clear sky in NW? The only thing I can do is to collect RGB stars. The good news is that nights will be longer starting tomorrow. 🙂👆

Edit. Indeed, the weather surprised me, 3x60x30s RGB stars were collected.

Imaging stars separately with an LPS filter or no filter at all is highly recommended. It's not really difficult to align the two master files according to the stars, process them separately and combine them at the end. When I work with the OSC cam I use IDAS LPS-P2 filter and do at least 30x30s frames for the stars. 

I was very sceptical about the Seestar S50, but I can see that stubborn imagers can get a lot out of this smartcsope. That doesn't make me buy it though.  

I never pictured the M27, so I joined the challenge with pleasure.   Here is my vision of the object based on the delivered data. I decided to leave the background as it is, with applying a stretch, of course.  I see the Graxpert works quite well.  

PixInsight only, DynamicCrop, delicate BlurXterminator, StrarXterminator, GeneralizedHyperbolicStretch, SelectiveColourCorrection and again BlurXterminator applied to the stars as they were slightly bloated. SCNR applied to the stars (too green). 

Very good data. I'd like to work on the unmodified master file, please share it if possible. Also, could you remind us what was used? I assume the RC6, but what camera and reducer, if any?

10 hours ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

i still can't find anyone who makes an eq mount with motorised alt/az adjustments

I thought about it several times. It shouldn't be difficult to do, but I stop my considerations every time I realise that a leveling also should be motorised which is much more difficult.