michael.h.f.wilkinson

Managed to grab a good two hours of data on M106 with the Meade 6"F/5 Schmidt-Newton and ASI183MC. Conditions were somewhat hazy, but I still got quite some detail in the galaxy, plus hints of the outer regions. Stacked the data in APP, and postprocessed with GIMP I hope to get a lot more data in the coming nights.

I think the question is more about the scope and camera used Very nice result

Working from home, I went through some old files (physical, paper ones, not this modern digital stuff), and came across the bulk of my old variable star observation records, the oldest dating back to October 1978. I remember getting the book "Astronomy with Binoculars" by James Muirden (the 1976 edition) and being fascinated by the variable star section, so promptly started observing the ones shown in the book (delta Cephei, Algol, TX Draconis, R Scuti and several more). Here is a sample of the R Scuti data And a light curve I made I must put these data in order, for old times sake, and draw some more light curves

One of the greatest albums ever. I see you also have a Schmidt-Newton. You don't see those very often. Would love to have a 10" one

Welcome back!

I used to have the Lunt, which was pretty good, but had shorter eye relief than I need (with my glasses). I now have a William Optics 7.5-22.5 mm Zoom II. It is no longer sold by WO, but the Opticstar seems to be a clone: http://www.opticstar.com/Run/Astronomy/Astro-Accessories-Telescopes-Opticstar.asp?p=0_10_5_1_8_331 Really nice zoom EP, with 18.0-19.5 mm eye relief

I have had a Vixen great Polaris mount for almost 25 years, initially equipped with a single RA motor with the standard Vixen hand controller. it has always run smoothly. Some 5 years back I upgraded this as to a dual motor set-up with ST-4 port, using a Sky-Watcher upgrade kit, as related here: Although this worked quite well initially, I have had to replace the controller in 2016 after the smell of burning silicon rose from it, and the RA control was lost. I suspected the cheap power supply might have had a voltage spike, so have run the replacement I got off a 6V sealed lead acid battery. This worked well until the DEC stepper motor packed in, requiring its replacement. During my last session with the Vixen Great Polaris mount, with the Meade 6" F/5 Schmidt Newton on it, I was watching M3 at the (forced) end of the session, when I noticed the RA motor wasn't budging, and the smell of burnt silicon came from the controller once more. It was running off the usual battery so voltage surges or spikes can't be the problem. The weight of the scope might be on the higher side, but the mount was perfectly balanced and ran as smooth as silk under manual control. My only conclusion is that these controllers are not well made. They should have added more capable driver transistors for the output, and added proper cooling fins for good measure I could of course buy a new controller, but ultimately, I do not believe this system is worth the (admittedly low) price. I have now ordered a full Sky-Watcher SynScan PRO Go-To Upgrade Kit for EQ5. More expensive, but more capable too, and hopefully more reliable.

I have used orthos in the past (and still have a 25mm), but what with cylindrical astigmatism, I really resent the need to push my eyeballs against the glass at the short end (I had a 5mm ortho, which I rarely if ever used due to its lack of comfort). I now have a set of Pentax XWs, and some Delos thrown in in the gaps. These are absolutely superb, and few can see the difference in transmission and contrast between these EPs and orthos.

Bagged my 27th comet surprisingly easily. I decided I wanted to hunt "the other ATLAS", which is currently in Cassiopeia. According to the Sky Hound Comet Chasing site it should be visible in small scopes, requiring a wide field rather than a huge aperture. I first inspected the area with my Helios LightQuest 16x80 binoculars, and thought I spotted some fuzzy ball in the right location. I then set up my Meade 6" F/5 Schmidt-Newton on the Great Polaris mount, and inserted the 31 mm Nagler, which turns this into a 24.5x152 comet sweeper with 3.3 degree FOV. I aligned the new 9x50 RACI finder on Capella, and swung the scope over to Cassiopeia. I immediately spotted a small patch of fuzz, which grew a bit clearer with the 22 mm Nagler. I checked with Stellarium whether there were any DSOs in this patch, but none showed up. The only object that fits the description of what I saw is Comet C/2019 Y1 (ATLAS). Comet number 27 bagged. I was observing in my mother's garden, which has slightly darker skies than my own, but I could only make out the core region of the comet, due to light pollution from Groningen to the north. After finding the comet, I had a quick look at the Leo Triplet, which are framed beautifully in the 3.3 degree FOV, and had a quick peek at NGC 2903 and M3, before calling it a night.

Quite a nice display this afternoon. This shot taken with my Canon EOS 80D and Sigma 50-100 mm F/1.8 zoom

Very nice shot

Nice one!

Really bright one captured from the garden

Didn't spot anything definite in white light, did get some images in Ca-K. There is a bit of plage in roughly the right spot in these images, and a hint of a pore. The granulation seemed a bit perturbed in that area in WL, but the image I did capture mainly showed some stacking artefacts (common with such an empty disk)

Just shot a 2000 frame sequence in Ca-K, using the trusty APM 80mm F/6 triplet and ASI178MM with Lunt B1800 Ca-K module. Grey scale: Pseudo colour: Not much to be seen apart from the AR up north, although there may be a little pore in the southern hemisphere

Got myself a 9x50 mm RACI finder with Vixen style finder dovetail bracket to replace the little 6x30mm straight through finder on the Meade 6" F/5 Schmidt-Newton. I also got some parfocaliser rings. Not a huge deal, but clouds have begun to rush in.

I find the intermediate powers useful to match exit pupil to both seeing conditions and surface brightness of the objects

Interesting observation. I generally use tracking scopes, so that might explain the different experiences. Is this effect limited to the 15 mm or have you seen it in others too?

I have a 15mm SLV, and never had any issues observing either sun or moon with it. I cannot fault the three SLVs I have (15, 9, and 5 mm) I use in my travel set-up. Mine may be a later version than Don's example, so the issue may have been fixed. My SLVs all perform similarly to my Pentax XWs, except in terms of field of view.

In my C8 I use quite a range of EPs, usually starting with the Nagler 31 mm (65.5x), as a general-purpose finder/wide-field EP. If I need to squeeze the largest possible field of view from the scope, I turn to the Vixen LVW 42mm (48.3x). For galaxy hunts, I go to the Nagler 22 mm (92.3x, which doesn't feel like a big jump from the 31mm). Depending on the surface brightness and seeing conditions, I might insert the Nagler 17 mm (119.4x). That is also an awesome tool for the moon, capturing the entire disc in stunning detail. For compact DSOs, in particular planetary nebulae, I have a Delos 14mm (145x, a fairly new arrival), and Nagler 12mm (179x, had that for years). We then move firmly into planetary and lunar EPs, and these are the Pentax XW 10 mm (203x), Delos 8 mm (254x), Pentax XW 7mm (290x), Delos 6mm (338x), and Pentax XW 5 mm (406x). The latter two are rarely used in the C8, but see a lot of service in the 80mm F/6 scope. As you can see, the EPs are far more closely spaced at the short end, to adjust to the seeing. Some of my best views of Saturn have been with the XW 7mm.

Nothing special, but managed to catch the conjunction, single shot using the Canon EOS 80D and 100-400 mm L IS USM zoom on the Benro monopod

Tried a trick of reducing the colour saturation of the noisy background, without affecting the colour in the objects. I basically did an HSL decompose of the image in GIMP, and computed a luminance channel (from LAB colour space) which differs subtly from the Lightness channel of HSL. I then imported the L and S channels from HSL into AstroImageJ, performed a maximum filter with radius 50, followed by minimum filter of radius 25, and a slight Gaussian blur (radius 5). I did a pixel-wise minimum combine of the S channel and this modified L channel, and saved the result. This resulted in a modified saturation channel, in which low intensity part of the image which are not close to a bright structure to have low saturation. I then combined the modified S channel, with Hue and Luminance as HSL in GIMP. The result is an image with just as much noise in the background as before (and it is still not quite flat), but at least the bright colours in the noise are gone.

That is lovely. Superb shot of a fascinating region of the sky. Certainly an area on my to-do list

After some issues with flats, I finally managed to process the data I got a few nights ago on the area around M86 and M84, using the Meade SN6 and ASI183MC. The background still shows residuals, but this is as good as I can get these data. Despite all the issues, I am pleased to have captured a load of fuzzies all in one go. I count at least 18, but there may be more. As ever, more data are needed, and I need to get my processing chain in order Tweaked the curves a bit, as the above version seems a bit dark on other monitors I have:

Looks like the effect you get when an achromatic refractor or camera lens is not in focus. If you use e.g. a camera or smartphone, the fact there is nothing in the centre to focus on can cause this lack of focus easily. Add some post-processing that most cameras and smartphones throw into the mix, and you can easily get such effects