Hallingskies

I wonder how many trivial copycat complaints this will spawn? The Mail just loves spreading misery...

A lot of folk don’t seem to like Lenovos but I think they are good solid machines and we have a couple around the house plus the one that does obbo duty. I get them second hand as well, from these guys, the “Grade B” ones are fine (or have been, touch wood!)... https://www.tier1online.com/refurbished-laptops/ Sorry, off topic a bit I know, but there is much in favour of older versions of Windows that can’t be connected to the internet and “updated” (aka “rendered unusable for AP”).

Same with mine, too. I use a prehistoric Lenovo laptop with Windows Vista (anyone remember that?) and it all usually works fine, but it seems to need to settle down for a few minutes before Artemis talks to the 460. And yet the Pegasus hub fires up straight away and gets power to the camera from the off because I can hear the cooling fan start.

I thought radiation pressure from the full moon was supposed to blow the clouds away. It usually does...

Raining stair-rods in my bit of Kent....️️️

Have grabbed a couple of hours of mediocre Ha on Sh2-132, but the bright moon and sky is causing a washout. Tried a single sub of OIII of 600s 2x2 binned but very little signal against the background as half-expected. Have decided to call it a night.

Just got going on Sh2-132, 12 x 600s in Ha for starters. Clouds threatened but I will take what I can get.

I wish I could plonk my kit down somewhere secure and cloud-free and just fire it all up over the wires when I fancied doing a spot of AP, with someone local in attendance to hit it with a big stick for me when it played up. I couldn’t care less if anyone called me a “cheat” for doing so. But then I can’t get my IT to work reliably when my gear is only half-way down the garden, let alone half-way around the world... ...and just popping over to Spain or wherever is just about to get a whole lot more expensive and difficult...

Those first two shots are better than anything I’ve managed to get of them in 15 years... You are certainly a quick learner!

From the evening of October 2nd... It was a funny old night seeing-wise, and I was not optimistic of getting much of a result with only four hours-worth of subs. I was therefore pleasantly surprised how it all scrubbed up, especially as there is a trace of the gas shell from Cygnus X-1 as a bonus... Details here if anyone is interested...

12 x 600s Ha subs on the Tulip now on the drive, but they look rather washed out and guiding is erratic. Poor seeing but transparency looks ok-ish so am persisting. Tried one 600s OIII sub and got zero nebulosity. Have set it to 2x2 binned @ 600s, will try and get another 10 subs and then call it a night I think, as satellite says clouds are coming. Could be last opportunity for a while as forecasts don’t look good and the full moon is coming... Stupid hobby....

I tend to stick with HOO and some RGB to give star colour, as I don’t care so much for the Hubble pallet. Your 5 position wheel would give you good service then. If you ever want LRGB you’d just have to create a false luminance from the RGB. That said, I have a bigger wheel with an SII filter which I hardly ever use - maybe it’s just me but I never seem to get much SII signal compared to Ha and OIII.

Satellite images show high thin cloud blowing over from the NE but I'm going to give it a go anyway...

Good thinking, but no, it’s an Atik 460. Should’ve said...

Just a couple of (probably daft) questions about this otherwise rather average image of M27 I put together last week. Firstly, there's a rather nice cascade of 12th magnitude stars just to the south of 14 Vulpeculae (the yellow star at the top of the image). I suppose such asterisms are ten-a-penny, but it seemed quite striking: it rather resembles a sea-horse. I couldn't find a record of it anywhere, but I just wondered if anyone knows if it has a formal ID as a "recognised" cluster? Also, I noticed that some of the brighter stars above (such as 14 Vulpeculae) appear to have faint diffraction spikes. I don't have a problem with that but as the scope is an Esprit 100, I just wondered where they are coming from!