Hallingskies

Hi Alan - PM sent.

I have had an owl flying into my observatory through the dome slit twice in the past couple of years, once while I was actually in there! Frightened the living wotsit out of me. Fortunately they only left a feather or two behind....

I use ordinary Thinsulate gloves and button-push with a rubber-ended pencil! Not so easy for anything else though!

Thank you for the information. I did think about getting the “stick” version a year or so ago but didn’t for some reason. Now it seems I’ve missed the boat! Ho hum...

Alan: Thank you for the reply and for your generous offer. I have the V10 already and indeed “manually” lifted the folders from the disc into Win10 on my new(er) laptop and it runs fine for most things. However, I can’t do things like input new comet ephemerides or CCD chip sizes for field framing. I have a workaround where I do that in XP and then copy the whole data file over to Win7/Win 10 - newer versions of Windows won’t let me edit the individual lines directly. It’s a minor thing but I think the V12 loaded and ran directly on 64 bit W10. I suppose the freebies like Carte Du Ciel are out there now, but I am so familiar with SMP that I am loathe to change to a different planetarium programme. I guess I’m just “resistant to change” as the SGL moderators like to say... SMP as a front end for telescope control under EQASCOM SMP is so easy to use.

I found a few download sites on the web, but nothing I would trust... If anyone knows anything more I would like to know.

It seems that Chris Marriott’s venerable and excellent Sky Map Pro is no longer available. The SkyMap Pro url now takes you to a gaming website, and from digging around on the web I understand that Dr. Marriott has decided to call it a day. I have used SMP for 20 years, both as a planetarium mapper and as a goto driver for my telescopes, and now really regret not getting a Win 10 compatible version...

Thought I'd have a go. The OIII data was better than anything I've ever got on this object, and highlights my limited processing skills. For this version, I made RGB compositions of the starless (Starnet) and star-reduced data, using Ha/SII/OIII as RGB. I then just randomly messed about using layers in Paint Shop Pro until I found something I liked and that also showed up that lovely OIII data without burning out the nebula - at which I only partially succeeded. There wasn't much SII but it did give a few interesting green bits.

Glad to see I’m not the only one doubting my equipment (or my sanity!). I have been having exactly the same crisis of confidence in my OIII filter just lately, and went for the Western Veil nebula as a test. Needless to say, the OIII-screened photons rattled down the tube and on to the camera, no problem. I think that there has been a lot of high haze of late, despite the clear-looking skies. It happens every early autumn, and yet still I have the same old doubts...

Thanks. I have exactly the same dilemma and these connectors look the business.

That's the problem I had....

I recently put up my latest image on my blog, a stab at Sh2-115. One of my acquaintances showed it to her astronomy-mad granddaughter, who thought it looked like a horned troll, trying to grab the star cluster in front of it with two massive paws... I think she has a point, don't you...?

I think software folk get bored once they write stuff and it just works for their customers. They then feel the need to change the things around and “update” stuff to make their own lives easier, whilst confusing and infuriating the end users who are perfectly comfortable with what they use. It’s a shame that ATIK has caught the Microsoft disease. Artemis works. Dawn doesn’t, at least not for me. Why mess around?

Huh. The Andromeda shot looks worse than my first attempt at it some 15 years ago, an image so poor I didn’t even bother to post it on my own blog. Still, I guess each to their own: one person’s reject is another’s “art”...

Be interested to know how you get on. Thought you might have got some other input from the “experts” on here, but these days they only seem to reply to each other!