drjolo

The bright star in the bottom left is 12 Vul, and the nebulosity that surrounds the NGC6823 open cluster is Sh2-86.

If you look at the enlarged crop, there are some more fuzzies to identify. There is a small comet-like nebula on the bottom right from the NGC6823, planetary nebula Kronberger 9 in the bottom part of the enlarged image, and tiny planetary nebula PN G059.7-01.0 in the left part of the frame, more or less in the middle of the height. Dark nebulae visible in the right part of the image are not present either in the Barnard catalog or in LDN, but they are enumerated in the Dobashi catalog.

I captured subframes for this image in the summer of 2023 during several nights under different conditions. The telescope used was Tecnosky Owl 90/540 with FF/FR with a QHY268M camera on the EQ6 mount. HSO and RGB filters were old CCD ones from Baader: 400:300:400 minutes with HSO filters, and 3x40 minutes of RGB for stars. The palette I wanted to achieve was gold-turquoise, but well, the outcome is not quite there   But it is somehow consistent with my previous HSO image from this year https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/414746-cygnus-heart-narrowband-mosaic/

I do not do many deep sky mosaics - I have made a few, and they have always been two-panel mosaics so far. But the frame below was in my mind for a long time already, so late spring this year I started to collect subframes and captured the last one in September. Then I waited a long time for a proper mood to process that material - it was a little bit scary to me  
But eventually, I picked up these over 50 hours of data that weighed over 60GB, calibrated, stacked, and processed in Pix and Photoshop. The final color palette is not referenced by anything - I have just mapped the narrowband data to the colors of my choice, added RGB stars, and that is it.

I hope you like it 😇 4K version after clicking. 

Tecnosky 90/540 Owl, 0.8x FF/FR, EQ6, QHY268M, 3x HSO 3x300 minutes, 3x RGB 3x40 minutes. Suburban sky, different conditions, summer 2023.

Recently I purchased 67mm Hoya ProND filters for my everyday camera. The set contains three filters - ND8, ND64 and ND1000. Once I have seen them I immediately decided to test them on the Sun. ND1000 filter alone was still too bright and I needed to stop down SIgma 100-400 lens below f/11 to reach 1/8000s exposure. I feared that resolution might be already limited with such a stopped lens, so I stacked ND8 and ND1000 filters to get "ND8000" and all worked fine.

Images below are 1:1 crops from Sigma 100-400 lens and Sony A7II camera - these are single 1/8000s shots at f/7.1.

And a single 1/100s shot of the Moon with the same setup (but no ND filters). I was a bit surprised some color could be revealed from the single shot only using a few adjustments in Adobe Camera RAW. 

3315 group is slowly hiding at the western edge, but 3321 and 3320 sunsposts have just appeared on the opposite side. 3319 is present in the center.

Celestron SCT 8", ND5 filter, Baader SC filter, ASI290MM camera. 

And the 3319 group evolution during one hour - how many changes can you spot?

Thank you @knobby! The solar filter itself has an 18cm inner diameter, so not quite full aperture  

Another day in the life of 3315 sunspot. Celestron SCT 8", ND5, Baader SC, barlow and ASI290MM. 

Thanks, @Stu! Today's seeing was not as good as yesterday, much worse, actually. And the moments of stability were much shorter, so the captured image is not as detailed, as the previous one.

Full disk - SCT8" with 0.63x reducer and PlayerOne Saturn C camera.
Sunspot - SCT8" with barlow and ASI290MM camera. 

Today morning I spent almost one hour waiting for seeing to get better, and during this time it happened two times, so I was able to set focus and then capture a short video to stack into the image below. 

Celestron SCT 8", Baader solar filter, Baader SC, ASI290MM, stack 200 of 2000 frames. FL about 3000mm (GSO ED barlow). 

Original image, negative, and with some 3D effect added  

A friend of mine (quite an advanced observer) was also impressed with this device. I think some adaptations may be done with 3D printer help. 

7 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

IRIS is the one I'm using - it's a bit basic but functional.

There are others out there.
APT - couldn't get it to work. It kicked up a Java error.
AIP4win - what everyone is using - asked for a serial number which I don't have.

You may also check C-Munipack https://c-munipack.sourceforge.net/

I wrote a short intro to it some time ago https://astrojolo.com/more-than-pictures/photometry-with-muniwin/

If you want to get fainter then you need to improve SNR - either by increasing aperture or by increasing exposure time. If you cannot go over 30 seconds, then you may stack images. Munipack itself allows stacking or averaging. 

Several sessions - six nights or so, as I recall in the backyard and one starparty. I received mine at the end of February. 

I do not use it with batteries but checked what you described, and yes - I cannot place a polar scope cover when the batteries are inside. 

1 hour ago, Astroscot2 said:

I wonder how common it is for the RA adjustment screw to become loose on this mount?  Reason I say this  is that Ive owned my SA GTI for nearly a year and used it a lot,  during normal operation I do loosen the DEC axis so I can view through the polar scope but rarely touch the RA adjustment due to my set up.

I have been using my GTi for several sessions already and did not touch the RA screw since the first time I adjusted it. The total RMS guiding error is consistent at about 2". 

RA screw is accessible when you remove the label sticker. The DEC cover comes out clean and easily

I was not aware of this filter until now. It looks promising, and I am thinking about it as well  

Thanks Steve!

From the same session two more captures with other prominent areas:

Hm, if you do high res spectra with 1,800 grating, you may try to calibrate on atmospheric telluric lines around Ha band - they should be already present in the spectra, but identification is required. If you have calculated dispersion of your system in A/px or nm/px it would definitely help.

I did it once https://astrojolo.com/spectroscopy/menkalinan-spectroscopic-binary-star/

Hi Steve,

What is the dispersion of your LowSpec? What grating do you use?

Here is the Dubhe spectrum that I have obtained with 600lpmm grating, so maybe you will be able to compare 

https://astrojolo.com/spectroscopy/big-dipper-cluster-collinder-285-spectra/

Unfortunately Dubhe is a G9 type giant, so there is a plenty of lines in the spectrum  

Seeing today has upgraded from bad to medium, so I spent some time on imaging the Sun. I made the images below using Celestron SCT8 and ASI290MM camera at 2 and 3m focal lengths. ND5 Baader foil in the front of the telescope and Ha 35nm filter in the front of the camera.

Yes, of course: SHO -> RGB 👌

Thanks, I also have Bortle 5/6 locally and do not try dark data anymore  

Thanks! It looks good indeed in many fields of view - the detail inside is perfect for longer focal lengths.

Rosette nebula is an extremely well-known and popular astrophotography target, but my recent setup field of view fits perfectly to this nebula, so I just had to image it. Dark dust filaments and the dynamics inside the Rosette are the features I cannot resist

So I spent several nights (5 or 6 as I remember) during February and March this year and captured the narrowband data to the image below. And eventually processed them during a few last evenings. 

Captured with TecnoSky 90/540 refractor, QHY268M camera with Baader filters, and EQ6 mount in my suburban backyard. 3x6 hours with 3 minutes subs, Bortle 6 sky with Moon present. 

There is a lot of dust in the Cepheus and the most prominent is probably the Iris nebula neighborhood. At the spring star party in Zatom, I pointed the telescope more toward the Draco to capture a less-known area around the LBN550 cloud. The frame was meant to be rotated 90 degrees, but I forgot about it, so it does not contain all the things I planned   But I am quite happy with the result anyway. At the right frame edge, there is Kappa Cephei - the only star in the frame visible to the naked eye. One or two more are barely visible under the very dark sky. All other stars are fainter than 6mag. The image field of view is about 6 by 4 degrees. 

Captured with Askar FMA230 telescope and QHY268M camera on StarAdventurer GTi mount. It is 4 hours of luminance and 3x1 hours of RGB with 2 minutes subframes. 

I am not an EAA expert, however, I know SharpCap and ASCOM a bit, so in my opinion:

1. AF using Sharpcap works quite well once you configure it properly. But if the focus motor you plan to have will be fixed to the main focuser of the SCT, then you may encounter some mirror shift and backlash on the focuser motion reverse. 
2. There are several options for plate solving in SC and I recommend installing and configuring ASTAP. It is quick and reliable and should work well even for the modest field of view of a 585 sensor at 2000mm FL. 
3. If you want to have Stellarium on the local PC that controls the mount on the remote PC, then the one configuration that comes to my mind is:
   1. install the Stellarium Scope addon on the local PC that can control the mount via ASCOM driver.
   2. install Celestron ASCOM driver (there is a standalone one), but I think CPWI has also its own ASCOM driver while it is running - on the remote PC
   3. install and configure ASCOM Alpaca that allows connecting to the ASCOM driver at the remote PC. ASCOM Rest Server needs to be set up on the remote PC and ASCOM Remote Client on the local PC

I also use RD to connect to the PC in the observatory, but I have CdC planetarium software installed on the remote PC and select the targets there via the RD. 

On 31/03/2023 at 13:00, Grant Fribbens said:

@drjolo I am interested in you PPEC results as on the GreenSwampServer board someone has asked about the CQ350 which does not report a PPEC capability to EQMOD or GSS and I think the author has contacted SkyWatcher and they have said that it is not supported. I have found the manual online and it does state that it has 200 segment container for PPEC data so am confused. Maybe you can only do PPEC training via the Synscan Handset and not controlling the mount via PC direct.

If it does not support PPEC then this would be a backward step.

Yes, the same appears to me - both GS Server and SynScanApp after connecting to CQ350 show that PPEC training is not supported. The only way to start PPEC training is to select the proper option in SynScan HC, but according to the manual the mount LED should then blink periodically during the training, and it does not in the mount I test. I asked the manufacturer about it but did not receive any answer yet. 

I totally agree that mount of that class needs to support PPEC. 

I am currently testing CQ350 and waiting for the clear sky to do tracking, guiding, and PPEC tests. I have read reports about CQ350 with RMS guiding error between 0.3-0.5" without PPEC and that looks very good. Other than that both mounts are quite similar with regard to specifications. So it may be a matter of other factors, like for example software you use. I personally prefer GS Server which works with Sky-Watcher mounts, than iOptron software. 

I used to have three iOptron mounts (ZEQ25, CEM26, and Smart EQ Pro) and was not happy about them due to the motor downsizing (balancing issues). The same problem is for CEM45, however, I do not have any experience with CEM70. I wanted to have it once in my shed, but it turned out my current EQ6 is perfectly enough for my setups (the largest load was ACF10" with equipment that was about 13kg).