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teoria_del_big_bang

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Posts posted by teoria_del_big_bang

  1. On 17/09/2023 at 18:27, fatjon said:

    Hello all. Just finished building my observatory near Gainsborough. Anyone else near me, I’m going to be in need of all kinds of advice?

    I have a Pulsar dome and a Celestron 8SE with an EQ6 and EQMOD. ZWO 1600MC Cool, filter wheel etc. Quite new to this but the doc says I have to give up pies and beer so here comes a new hobby!

    Computers, science and electronics are my area and astronomy fascinates me so I think I chose the right one.

    Welcome to SGL 🙂 

    WOW, you really have jumped into this hobby with both feet, not many people start with an obsy.
    I am sure you will find it fascinating and be in it long term but it really is a marathon and not a sprint so be ready for some frustration and time spent getting everything to work just right, and also the weather in UK generally tends not to help.

    But, joining SGL you have made a great move, I am no veteran of this hobby only starting in my late 50's and without this forum I do not think I would have managed in imaging.
    But take your time, step by step and you will get there. When the weather is not playing ball try to improve your processing skills, getting the images is only half the task as yu have a lot of processing to bring out the very feint nebulas and galaxies and that take time and a fairly steep learning curve so getting 3rd party data and practicing your processing is important.

    But most of all enjoy it, ask plenty of questions, if you do not already have it get the great book "Every photon counts" and read, several times, again this really helped me on my journey.

    We probably cannot help with the Beer and pies issue, well SGL never helped me much 🤣

    Once again welcome 🙂 

    Steve

  2. Another possible consideration might be can you fit a 2" FW in your back-focus.
    I have not looked into it but I imagine these heavier bigger FW's will have bolt on adapters that tend to take up more of that back focus, probably not an issue unless you decide at some point to get an electric rotator and need to fit that in the imaging train. I have one and love it, it makes framing so much easier but I bought what is probably one of the thinnest filter wheels going and still struggled getting a rotator to fit in my BF.

    Maybe an obscure thought but worth making sure it will fit ok into your intended imaging train.

    Steve

  3. 5 hours ago, DSOBug said:

    Thanks for the advice, I have a Redcat 51, AM5, 120mm G S. Asiair Plus, EAF,  I was going for the 1.25  5 place filter wheel but as someone said go for the 2" wheel to future proof, I think that's a good Idea.  Also I'm going for the Optolong 2" L-Ultimate Dual Bandpass Light Pollution Reduction Imaging Filter.  And adding Ha/OIII and a SII/OIII filters to the wheel also. 

    Whats everyone's thoughts on that.

    In short if you can afford then yes its a good idea, probably only downside is you are adding  a lot of extra weight to your set-up.

    If you are definitely in this hobby for the long term and you can afford then probably a good idea. I think everybody would go this route apart from the expense of the 2" filters.
    I can only speak for myself but I have 36mm unmounted and with my set-up this is probably the smallest I could get away with but I had the choice to either get what are considered some of the best filters (more on the NB side not so much LRGB) which at the time was Chroma or Astrodon, eye-wateringly expensive but I had such bad issue with halos on OIII filters in the past so wanted something that worked well. Of course I would have liked 2" but no way I could afford all 3 Ha, SII and OIII and to keep then as close to parfocal as possible I wanted all 3 to be the same manufacturer, so discarded the thought of buying an Astrodon  or Chroma OIII and cheaper Ha and SII. Hence my 36mm choice. 

    Your case using OSC is a bit different of course as you will not need the same number of filters despite them still being expensive. However, will you stick with OSC ???  
    What is LP like where you intend to image ?  There has been tremendous improvements with dual-pass filters, and also OSC CMOS cameras, so maybe LP not such an issue these days but maybe you do decide to buy a mono camera next time then you will be changing all your filters at a tremendous cost - maybe a consideration only you know 🙂 

    Steve

  4. 3 minutes ago, sinbad40 said:

    Agree with most of the above about RGB (not needed for colour camera) etc, But i have a 533C camera, and i also got a filter wheel.  I only use 4 of the slots, L-pro, L-Enhanced, Ha/OIII and a SII/OIII.  I got a 2" wheel to future proof things for the next camera.  I do have a filter draw (started with it) that isn't used at the min, but will be on another telescope with just a LP filter for wide field.

    My main reason to get it was if i was changing target and needed to change the filter, I didn't want to get up in the middle of the night to do it.

    Makes sense I guess, never done any OSC but I guess with al the different filters now available for OSC I can see that to automate the process a filter wheel would be useful.

    Steve

  5. I would agree with the above advice, no real need for a filter wheel with OSC as you are unlikely to be switching between lots of filters during as session like you need to with mono.

    Also, if you did decide you still need a filter wheel do you really want to be forking out for 2" filters, decent 2" filters are expensive and I would think unnecessary for a 1" CMOS camera.

    Steve

  6. 29 minutes ago, Trippelforge said:

    How do dew heaters pull more power? Can you hook them up directly to the AVX or are you talking about certain other mounts? Thanks for the link, I will read through it shortly. And ya I am also on Cloudy Nights., I posted a question over there and I pretty much got pages of how to build your own battery... lol.  That seems to be a common thing though, you can ask one very basic question and no one usually just answers it (lol). This forum seems more helpful. 😃

     

    As a very broad rule most mounts of this sort of size will draw about 2 A max when slewing and this will reduce to less than 0.5A when tracking, obviously bigger and heavier the mount then more current it is likely to take.
    Dew bands can generally take anything from 0.5A to 2A depending on the size and the bigger diameter then usually the more current it will take, as a very general statement ones on my Esprit will take about 0.8 A if running on direct 12V and not reduced via a controller.
    So if you were not using dew bands then 2.5A supply would be fine just for the mount but with a dew band you would be better off with the 5A and that will have some reserve for extra equipment in the future such as a guidescope dew band or a cooled CCD so always worth to but a bit bigger than you need at the immediate time of purchase to future proof it somewhat.

    Steve

  7. A 50M extension reel will be fine.
    The rule with any extension reel is to always unwind all the cable even if using a 50M extension 10M away from the power source.
    If left wound on the reel the cable can get very hot and melt the sheathing. Yes the power draw will be very low running astro gear, yes at these low powers it may be okay but I would still unwind all the cable.
    At the power source if it is not already protected by an RCD then use a plug in RCD.

    @Cosmic Geoff 's point about a trip hazard is very relevant and the empty reel itself will add to the trip hazard so something to be aware of and put the reel directly under the mounts tripod out of the way and keep the trailing cable straight and flat to the ground with any slack well out of the way.

    If I use an extension anywhere outside I like to put a bucket upside down over the reel and plugs to protect from moisture and maybe keep the whole lot off the ground a little.

    Steve

    • Like 1
  8. 19 minutes ago, Mr H in Yorkshire said:

    However we absolutely love where we are and would be very hard put to find something as suitable so we have decided we are wedded to this house till we go out feet first. 

    Yes I can really understand that, and to be honest we have tentatively looked for another house since my Son left but we have the same sort of feeling that nowhere we have seen compares to our current house, and as we intend to downsize we have to realise it never will, despite probably not having the love for where we are the same way you have (don't get me wrong we really like it here but love is probably too strong) we are struggling to find somewhere to move to.
    One big issue is my huge garage, that has never housed a car, but it full of astro gear, fishing gear, 3D printers and paraphernalia, and I really don't know what else, the contents of the garage alone would fill a normal 2 bedroom house 🙂 . 

    But also I did make an attempt to retire a few years back, approaching 60, but that lasted a month and work asked me to come back, and as I loved my work I just couldn't say no and so now work part time, However, 3 years later I have to sometime make the break and that sort of leads to a sort of what is maybe not a mid-life crisis, I mean I am not suddenly going to but a motorbike and pass my bike test as so many of my mates did in their late 40's early 50's, but I do have ideas floating about that you sort of feel are "if I don't do it now then I never will" sort of plans, and again money gained from the downsize would fund one of these ideas, if I ever get on with it.

    Not sure how showing a couple of re-hashed images lead to moaning about LP and explaining my pending retirement, amazing how threads develop, but in a way all the points are linked as is so many things in our lives 🤣

    Trouble is that despite all my plans and thoughts about what we want to do time just seems to trickle through our fingers and before you know it several years have gone by any you are no further forward, as I age time seems to change exponentially. 

    I guess 2024 should be decision time, move and fund one of our dreams AND build a permanent pier or obsy, OR stay put and still build the pier or obsy 🙂 

    Steve

    • Like 1
  9. 10 minutes ago, Mr H in Yorkshire said:

    That is a very expensive option just for improving astro time, hopefully there would be other benefits too. 

    Ha yes it sounds it but the move is not just to get better skies, although if I could persuade the wife to do so it might 🤣, but is just down-sizing from a big 4 bedroom to something more manageable as the kids are grown up and moved out (well Son moved several years ago and daughter moving soon) so it should work out that financially we are better off.
    Because the move has sort of been on the cards for some years I have put off a building a permanent pier where I am currently, although maybe I should have just done it as we have been potentially moving for something like 4 years.

    Steve

  10. 3 minutes ago, Mr H in Yorkshire said:

     Fortunately a half hour drive gets me to the centre of moorland that is as far as is possible distant from any significant town, truly impressive darkness.

    And this is another posibility for me to getter better data if I just get myself a suitable rig. I already have the scope with the WO73 that I think will suffice and if I keep the ZWO1600 so definitely something to think about. Still need the weather to play ball though 🤣  

    I know a lot of my issues is probably myself not pushing myself to use every possible clear night but again I know that is due to my heavy rig with no permanant pier as I tend to wait till there is a definite clear night instead of grabbing a couple of hours here and there where ever possible. So a move of house for me even somewhere half decent will probably be good for me at my age will probably be my last move, at least for sometime if not for good, so no more putting off at least a permanant pier maybe a rudimentry obsy so this reasoning is another thing that keeps me going.

    Steve

    • Like 1
  11. 10 minutes ago, Mr H in Yorkshire said:

    From what I have seen of Skipton (son and wife live in Cononley) the dark outskirts are a developers dreamscape. How long will the dark last? We moved to the centre of Pateley and I realised many years ago the potential folly of buying next to an open field on the edge of a town only to see the wonderful view transition into a housing estate, and they seem to be getting bigger all the time.

    Yes you are right, I already live on what was the outskirts of town when we bought it 23 years ago (otley side of skipton) and now there are estates to the south albeit a reasonable distance away, and to the east of us, but thankfully the other side of a railway embankment so that does minimise the effect, but apart from that it is lke so may other threads on here even the houses that were here have new residents that all seem to think they are not safe without 1000 W floodlights to light up their back garden, some not even on PIRs but on all noght.
    It really make imaging more amd more difficult but I am still in a darker area than so many have to cope with and they still manage some great images.

    The area my daughter is building on is farmland that is in the boyfriends family and still some distance beyond the edge of town but it has taken knocking on 3 years to get plans approved and they are very restricted, and yes eventually developers will encroach but should take a few years and I bet they are all two story boxes all looking the same with 1M between them without all the resrictions my daughter has had to cope with and fight against.

    Steve

    • Like 1
  12. 14 minutes ago, sinbad40 said:

    Ha, we made the mistake of not down sizing when our eldest moved out as we wanted the youngest to finish uni and get settled in a job etc.  Now the youngest is looking for a job, and the eldest has split from his girlfriend and had to move back in after 4 years  :(  But as we were thinking of something smaller, it allowed me to buy a pier that can be unbolted and moved, so something good came out of it :)

     

    TBH my daughter is still with us but part way through a self build with her boyfriend (in a pretty dark area on outskirts of town so maybe a possible obsy build 🙂 ) but she is planning to be in it sometime next year so that was also a reason for not rushing but our thoughts were to then move to a much smaller place so they can't come back (joking of course 😉)

    Steve

    • Like 1
    • Haha 1
  13. No I empathise with you and I too do not see what could be wrong. But I know I have had issues in the past and usually just start with the basics and plug directly into laptop and use the supplied capture software and take some darks which then if they are not as expected it makes it obvious if some issue with the camera but if normal then gives me some confidence and carry on trying to take bias and flats which can all be done during daylight so not taking up a good nights imaging.

    I have to admit i am no expert by any means so just trying to suggest what I would do not necessarily what needs doing. 

    Again I have no idea of this but could condensation inside the camera cause this ???

    Steve

    • Like 1
  14. 2 hours ago, sinbad40 said:

    I know how you feel.  around 2010, I was having issues with my back, which didn't help dragging a 10" lx90 out, aligning and then watching the cloud come back in.  I decided to sell everything and call it a day.  spent a number of years just doing visual with bino's and a spotting scope i use for archery.  Last year i decide to start again, but a lot smaller, i even put a pier in with a cover so i could leave it out, so i can now manage a quick setup in 5 mins which has helped with the weather pain we seem to have this year.

    Defo a big improvement from the old image, but i would be chuffed with either at the min.  Fingers crossed we get better weather soon. 

    Yes any data is good data at moment.
    I too need to do something similar to yourself as I have a heavy I-Optron Tri pier to carry out and need a permanant pier. I just keep putting it off because with kids moving out we have been moving and downsizing for past 5 years but with covid and trying to find something suitable we are still here 😂

    Part of finding somewhere suitable is trying to find a backyard or garden with pleanty of sky to view and at least low LP but so damned hard to find these days without iving out in stick in an expensive self detached.

    Steve

  15. 54 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

    That’s an amazing difference and improvement @teoria_del_big_bang isn’t it?   Like you I’ve only recently realised how useful it is to return to previously processed data.  Not only does it help keep my skills fresh but also I’ve picked up new techniques in the mean time and there have often been technical improvements to the software. 

    Yes I was suprised what a difference it was and can't pin it all on me improving over a couple of years, but hopefuly some of it is.
    For me a lot has been the RC-Astro suite of products, especially BlurXT and Noise XT and learning to seperate the stars eary on and process them seperately. I realy struggled with sharpening and noise reduction in early says even though the tools were there. I know that BlurXT especialy gets some critisism from many about being cheating but if thats what it takes then I will cheat 🙂 .
     

    Steve

    • Like 2
  16. This year has not been great for me with very little imaging activity mostly due to weather. I think the last time my rig was out was February.
    I did have two months working in China that stopped any imaging in March / April but since then a bad back and mostly the weather has just made it very difficult to get any further data so far this year. 
    I have had the rig out several time on what CO says will be clear nights but on all of them the seeing has been poor due to the humidity and has ended up at least having partial cloud making any meaninful imaging almost impossible.
    Having looked at how much money is tied up in equipment and how often it gets used I did contemplate selling up altogether as it all seemed so frustrating. I think I would have packed it all in if not for SGL, and how much I enjoy being a part of it, so I am now trying to get my enthusiasn back fully, and as weather still not great I have started revisiting old data that originally yielded poor final images and making sure my eqipment is ready to go and all software updates installed.
    This is some SHO data from 2021 that my original processing gave very poor results. Hopefully my processing skills have improved to some extent but after saying that it is funny how not processing for several months makes you a but rusty and takes a bit to get back into it.
    Originally processed in a hubble pallete, yielding a rather insipid result, I tried using the Foraxx pallete script in PI and I think this one looks better for me like this. I processed this fairly simply not spending lots of time on it using some PI processes not available on the original attempt.

    Foraxx_DBE.thumb.jpg.b715965a19687a6c0f09608cc3e55d62.jpgNGC_7635_Bubble_Nebula_Foraxx_Crop_SPC2.thumb.jpg.7b2c63832b054309a0ff51cadab45803.jpg

    This was my original image:

    002-Copy(2).thumb.jpg.83f2aa6f7314e871210961852bcb7a6e.jpg

    Here's hoping for some clear nights soon, and thank-you SGL members for keeping me going 🙂 .

    Steve

    • Like 12
  17. 6 hours ago, groberts said:

    Which, I think rules out LP?

    Yes Graham certainly seems to be pertaining to the camera whether settings or a fault (which I hope it is not).
    I just can't think what settings could be wrong all in the fits header looked fine. What if you try using the camera in the software supplied by ZWO just to try a capture, clutching at staws a bit but using the cameras supplied capture software is where I tend to start with diagnosing these sort of issues.

    Steve

    • Like 1
  18. I must admit if that image preview is unstretched the background looks very bright what is the scaled value if you hold the curser over background in PI ?
    It does look like there is a lot of light polution about.
    Are your RGB images okay , I know you say they are but  the same but I expect they would not suffer as much as the lum and possibly the NB would hardly be affected.

    I now its not comparing like for like as I have different scope but heres one of my Lum images form a few years ago with same camera but different scope.

    Not sure this helps at all though 😞 

    Background measures an average of about 0.12 in PI but this was a 600S exposure so with similar skies 180S shoud be much les than this.

    image.thumb.png.a36bc5fc907e0ec11fd115f185a72301.png

    2023-10-19.thumb.png.d56f1294fd49907a21ff3ba983fd08ae.png

    Steve

  19. I know it may be tempting but I also agree with Elp and Olly, Even if you think you can afford the finance you will inevitably find that you need other "bits and bats" once up and running and find you have more outlay, and although "bits and bats" they will be £50 here, £30 there plus postage and they soon add up.
    I don't know if it already been said but getting the images is only a small percentage of the task and processing is probably a bigger task than the imaging so the idea of downloading 3rd party data (probably some still on SGL) and learning the processing side with free software will give you a big advantage when eventually you do get your own data and your images will be far better because of the effort.

    Believe me whilst AP is not wizardry it does have a steep learning curve both in acquisition and processing, so it really is a marathon not a sprint and requires patience and the understanding failure will come before you master it (if you ever master it - I know I haven't). However after a while things drop into place and things start working and you then have a good understanding of what is involved, but still a way to go to get the best out of your equipment. So trying to speed things up by buying equipment early really does not make much headway on the end result. Take your time, get the best equipment you can afford but the right equipment and it will happen. 

    Steve

    • Like 1
  20. 1 hour ago, Ouroboros said:

    “Press and guess” I like that phrase. :) Sums up my workflow. Actually I’m pretty much OK until I go nonlinear, then I feel I’m flaffing around in a multidimensional space of possibilities. I’m not quite sure where I’m going or how to get there. I always do get somewhere. I end up with an image. But I often feel there’s a better image lurking in the data if only I knew how to get it out. 

     

    55 minutes ago, tomato said:

    I too am from the “Press and Guess” school of processing. There are very accomplished imagers who will understandably frown on this practice, stating that you should know what you want to change on the image and understand the processing tools sufficiently to choose the right one and know what to adjust to make the change happen. The trouble is the software interface is so designed with sliders that it is very hard indeed to resist giving them a try, there is an undo button after all. Even PI, that bastion of rigorous, numbers based processing, allows you to do this.

     

    26 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

    This is my issue. I get images, but I feel there should be more.

    I think maybe I am being a little unfair on myself with the 'press and guess' description. However, often I know what I want to do, but cannot always get there. 

    I do hear similar comments on SGL quite a lot and the same goes for myself to a certain extent. A few images lately (I say lately probably Feb/March as not done any imaging since due to weather and commitments) I seem to have got the image I want first attempt but others I do seem to faff about constantly tweaking till the image is useless then going back to linear stages and starting again and often I get an image but one that I am never really happy with.
    Now, for me at least I think I may know why and the few images that came together really quickly first time look like most other images (or what I consider to be good images) of the targets, with similar colours and saturations, the details are there (to some extent anyway) that I can see on other good images and somehow that makes me satisfied I have done a good job. 
    Now, the other images I struggled with do not have this quality, and no matter how much I try to go back and start again, no matter whose tutorials I follow (and  @Budgie1 some great ones there on your link) they still never really do end up as I want them.
    Why, not really sure but probably the detail, or at least the detail in some of the filters (RGB or SHO) is just not there, or the seeing was just not great, or I was just wrong with exposure length or something.

    The other thing to consider is that at the end of the day we generally are creating an image that is not true to what our eyes see anyway. They are not really false images if we process properly as everything in the image should be something that is actually there and on our individual images but the colours and the ratio of how we mix them, that is not true at all, but we probably become fixated on other images, maybe even harking back to Hubble's perspective on Space, and then feel those colours are what we should be producing.

    Well that's sort of how I see it anyway but my wife and kids often say I talk nonsense so still may be the case 😂, also I think generally images are very self critical and too harsh on their own work.

    After all that waffle, @Clarkey that actually is a great image and I agree with the fact how this target looks so much better widefield like this rather than just a magnified section most images are, given some good weather I would love to do a mosaic of this area of sky.

    Steve

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 1
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