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Wiu-Wiu

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Everything posted by Wiu-Wiu

  1. Maybe you are trying to image it close to the meridian and it flips? The asiair should platesolve before starting its exposures, so that part should work - even if you're not staraligned. It might be off the first time, but should keep getting closer by every new platesolve. It sounds like you might have 2 separate issues: polar alignment and star alignment. If you are polar aligned, you should be okay, even roughly. don't redo the whole process every time. Try getting the home position for both computers (your mount and the asiair) at the same page - I mean: it's like an old couple in a car. They both have to know where you are heading, but only one should do the driving.
  2. Thank you! I make a raw sketch at the eyepiece, and then redo it at home. Both on white paper, then scan, invert and do some digital work to flatten the background or make some stars brighter or fluffier. for example: proper sketch - raw scan: digital result:
  3. Last batch of sketches of our last observing weekend: This lovely trio is seen in Delphinus, at mag 15.4, NGC 6927 is the faintest one there. The brightning at the tip of NGC 6930 could be due to UGC 11590, but at mag 16.1, it was doubtful and I didn't annotate it as seen. This little, round galaxy was spotted during starhopping. I liked the field of stars it is seen in, so decided to sketch it. At mag 13.99, this is no easy target. Very comet-like appearance! Next is a lovely galaxy which should give nice detail in photographs. I saw at least one arm extending towards a star. The top one of the night: NGC 7479, the Superman Galaxy. I waited for good seeing to sketch this, the amount of detail seen was a lot more than on the other nights. It was still quite low, sadly, so it might give even more details higher up in the sky - or from lower latitudes. That's it for now; next up: La Palma. If they let us leave, that is. Thanks for watching!
  4. I might give it a crack with the C11 edge one day.
  5. I was shocked to see 4 moons on this small stack of the planet. Miranda is in the glow. Better processing might bring it out, but I'm not that good
  6. Working away the backlog in my astro imaging: M15 from a planned session with the asiair earlier this month.
  7. I was finally able to get a shot of this asteroid, just as it was close to M74. Now hoping they like it...
  8. This cute planetary nebula shows some lovely details if granted by seeing. The Western edge is a bit brighter, the nebula is almost perfectly circular, a bright central star is visible and the center of the nebula is darker than the edges. In the nebula, a brighter patch is seen towards the NW-side.
  9. Hey Alan, Thank you! No, I used the Astronomik CLS on this one. The Lumicon is 2" and would probably have to be put in the front of the paracorr, as my eyepieces are mostly 1.25". I did tackle the Horsehead it's even visible with Alnitak in the same FOV, at dawn. (I'm not really happy with the sketch yet)
  10. Some more results from my latest trip to our dark sky location. I was able to use the 18" Canopus on a Tom O. Equatorial platform, it is handling the scope very well. The stability makes all the difference in sketching at high powers. Unfortunately, seeing wasn't excellent, and high clouds must have been around too, as transparency wasn't quite good, either. NGC 6804 is a peculiar planetary, with an odd irregular galaxy look. 2 dark indentations are seen (one big at the West and a smaller one to the east side), and a smaller patch of fuzziness is seen to the north of the nebula. The nebula is sharply edged at its north-east edge. It fades out broadly to the SouthWest. Another peculiar planetary nebula is NGC 6778. At extreme magnification, this PN gets the appearance of an hourglass. A bright diagonal can be observed. This trio of galaxies is a lovely group. At mag 15.2, NGC 318 was still seen with direct sight. Just East of the Coathanger (Collinder 399) is this small open cluster. At low magnification, its core has a rectangular appearance. When diving into the core, tiny specks of light appear, with darker areas creating gaps in the rectangle.
  11. Pinched optics in the objective. I’ve seen several posts like this. You might want to contact your dealer to change it for another one, sadly, there are bad batches of them that just shouldn’t have left the factory.
  12. Wiu-Wiu

    NGC 404

    This object, to me, is striking how good this telescope is performing. Even with Mirach stealing the show (notie the color?), NGC 404 stands out clearly. I've done some experimenting on the spikes and the glow around Mirach too in the digital sketch. Hope you like it!
  13. It is! Having a good equatorial platform helps too, I have had multiple galaxies that were just oval smudges, but when I was able to enlarge them (when seeing allowed it), some of them showed detail one only would see on a picture. Same with some planetary nebulae; I had at least 3 that were marked "stellar" in the IDSA, but were showing details that I could confirm on pictures afterwards...
  14. I recently had some darn good views with a binocular, but I guess I wouldn’t be using that as the only thing to look up. How about a nice mak? They are quite light and can perform quite well on a light mount… I wouldn’t take it on a plane, though. But i’ve seen people take up to an 8” sct on airtravels. the largest scope I take on a plane is my trusty 12” Sumerian dob. The mirror goes into the carry-on and the rest fits into the luggage.
  15. I finally managed to get way for a couple of nights to our usual dark sky spot in France. I've got a lot of sketches to process - this is the first one. The 18" is really behaving well, I've been testing it on the platform that will soon be mine, a match made in heaven. I might do a write-up on the weekend if I find some time. The sketch is NGC 157, a peculiar sight. It's a face on spiral galaxy but the arms look a bit weird. The dark lanes are more profound in the northeast side, but 2 dark lanes can be seen in the other parts. Lovely!
  16. Moving from 8” SCT to a 12” dob the biggest ‘wow’ for me were the pinpoint stars. SCT’s always gave me a bit of ‘woolly’ stars, unless you had an edge or ACF, which were better, but not quite. the aperture also boosts contrast so the background tends to be a bit darker, and fainter stars come through. the biggest ‘wow’ might indeed be globulars. They are much more resolved. I recently upped from a 12” to an 18” and the views are jaw-dropping. White ovals on Jupiter, a multitude of moons on Saturn, globulars resolved to the core, details in nebulae and galaxies,… . (but 16” with prime optics will do the very same thing.) The group of friends with whom I regularly go out to dark skies all own 16 to 20” Nichol and Lukehurst Sumerian dobsonians and the quality in all is superb. The bigger aperture ‘only’ brings out more faint detail. We are all awaiting one friend’s 30” lukehurst build, but that might still take a while.
  17. 1 18” and 2 16” truss dobs side by side on our dark sky location, waiting for astronomical darkness… this would never be possible if they weren’t transportable.
  18. I've been able to get under the stars again... no dark locations, so clusters and bright DSO it is... Enjoy!
  19. You could try Deepskylog.org - there's lots of sketches on there. Maybe there's some you could use...
  20. I will be taking a shot on this one myself when skies finally clear up, but the asteroid is currently in Pisces so we actually might have a shot this time of year. It is mag 13 so not impossible for most amateurs anymore... I'd like to relaunch my call to anyone with some spare imaging time, it would mean a lot. Thanks in advance!
  21. thank you! Not sure, but I do think there’s a multiple star system in there: STI 237 (at least, I think) (Simbad data - not really my cup of tea, but I’d be interested in seeing some explanation too )
  22. The topic made me think of this I live in the center of town so my garden is not the place to be when hunting fuzzies. There is a better spot about 20 minutes away so I usually go there and take my stuff in the car. The car is big enough but that's good for 1 night, and no extra luggage. When portability is in mind, AND you need to save some space, your best bang for the buck comes from Sumerian Optics. My big scope collapses to this : And when going on an airplane, I can take my 12" (but I leave the cover at home), which collapses to this: (not my pic)
  23. There's no way to tell from this picture. Maybe book 21 can help - Which tools do you have to assist in collimating?
  24. This "wobbly" behaviour is a trick our brain plays with us. It is more evident when looking at a fast and (bright) satellite. I see it almost every time while looking at the ISS. It appears to be slightly waving from left to right. I would have to look up the exact explanation, but it has something to do with the background stars and the movement of the object while speeding through.
  25. During the perseid shower we got some clearish skies. High clouds prevented me from doing proper deep sky stuff, but I got 3 allnighters in that week, and chose to do some clusters that were still on my to do list. Anywhere from done in that project, but still years and years to go. Got to keep something left for the old retirement, don't I ? Enjoy! And make sure to pay them a visit, I love clusters as they don't suffer that much from lightpollution as the other stuff.
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