Laurin Dave

A very interesting thread.. I too frequently ponder the advantages of a larger scope than my Esprit150... for speed of capture rather than an increase in resolution which I think will be hard to come by in the UK . but then I look at this and wonder why.. another M51 this time from Bortle 4/5 Berkshire 12.5 hrs lum 5 hrs a channel RGB and 15 hrs Ha on piggybacked Esprit100. not as good as the Haute Alpes but getting close.. Dave

Very nice Goran... just to show how isolated it is here's my recent version uncropped and annotated in Pixinsight (apologies for gatecrashing) Dave

Mine slipped but I solved it with two short bits of bicycle inner tube under the top bit of the tube ring

Lovely .. you’ve got that working very well

A pier extension, plus maybe a much longer dovetail (are you using one or just the foot on the ED80) to allow you to move the scope as far forward as possible and add some extra weight on the camera end for balance Dave

Thank you … Pixinsight says 57 PGC galaxies.. and that's not all of them...

Captured last night, planetary nebula Messier 97 the Owl Nebula and Messier 108 a barred spiral galaxy in Ursa Major. The Owl planetary nebula is located approximately 2,030 light years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It was discovered by French astronomer Pierre Méchain on February 16, 1781. When William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, observed the nebula in 1848, his hand-drawn illustration resembled an owl's head. It has been known as the Owl Nebula ever since. The nebula is approximately 8,000 years old. It is approximately circular in cross-section with a little visible internal structure. It was formed from the outflow of material from the stellar wind of the central star as it evolved along the asymptotic giant branch. The nebula is arranged in three concentric shells, with the outermost shell being about 20–30% larger than the inner shell. The owl-like appearance of the nebula is the result of an inner shell that is not circularly symmetric, but instead forms a barrel-like structure aligned at an angle of 45° to the line of sight. The nebula holds about 0.13 solar masses of matter, including hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulphur. Its outer radius is around 0.91 light years and it is expanding with velocities in the range of 27–39 km/s into the surrounding interstellar medium. Messier 108 is a barred spiral galaxy also in the constellation Ursa Major. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in1781 or 1782. From the perspective of the Earth, this galaxy is seen almost edge-on. This galaxy is an isolated member of the Ursa Major Cluster of galaxies in the Virgo supercluster and is about 45million light years away. It has a morphological classification of type SBbc, a barred spiral galaxy with somewhat loosely wound arms. 1.5hrs each RGB and 2 hrs Lum through Esprit150/SX46 plus 3hrs Oiii and 2hrs Ha through Esprit100/ASI1600. Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop.. the outer shell is just starting to show. Thanks for looking Dave

Thanks.. my Dad loved his wireless and when we lived in Carshalton and then Wanstead that's where he had his aerial pointed!

Nice one Dave.. is that Wrotham mast in the distance?

Very nice Steve, particularly impressive result given that you had no green subs. Dave

Given that the guiding looks good I’d suspect flexure between the OAG camera and the Imaging camera. ZWO wobbly OAG stalk perhaps or something else a bit loose .

Thank you, April/May 2002 that was, I have a slide of them all somewhere that I took whilst showing them to the local cub group .. I shall have a look for it

Another chance tomorrow morning if the forecast holds .. with the Moon below Mars

Me too.. I blame lack of sleep

Adam.. ie @tooth_dr had caught it this morning... reported on another thread..

Up early this morning to capture Mars Saturn Jupiter and the Moon over nearby fields.. Nikon D750, Samyang 135, fixed tripod, 10s thanks for looking Dave

I think it’s the jerky way that Fireball moves through the stars .. been catching up on all 39 original episodes during lockdown

Excellent Gav... reminds me of Fireball XL5 for some reason.. Dave

I use SGPro and just focus on whatever filter I’m using (focusses on filter change and every 1 deg C.. ) takes a while with the CCD on narrowband but for LRGB I can’t see any time advantage using L (or another filter)and an offset..

the other thing that might help is to increase the "Search Region" in the PHD2 Advanced Setup Guiding Tab

I think you need to increase the Dither scale in PHD2 by the ratio of the focal length of the SW200p to 162 mm ie about 6 to get the same actual dither movement in your imaging camera..

Brilliant!!.. Great idea extremely well executed. Well done Dave

Yes like that but will it screw further down towards the sensor

That looks right although I’d turn the filter round if possible so that any anti reflective coatings are facing the right way.. as for a 2” filter I don’t think it will work between the flattener/reducer and camera but if you look on the scope facing side of the flattener/reducer there may be a thread you can screw one in to

A guess but maybe encoder conflict.. are they in polite mode? Or whatever Steve has in the manual? Also need supervisory threshold set to 10 deg.. all from memory Helen