Brian28

Nice 👍 

Sending PM 

Great image 👍..., but I’m more surprised that you have actually had 9 nights to take it ! 😂

40 minutes ago, fozzybear said:

a dry cut then no coolant. Still a brave man. well impressed

Small amount of WD .. 

13 minutes ago, fozzybear said:

you are a brave man with all that swarf floating around I take it you protected the underside job well done.

No, I didn’t ..😉. no swarf would rest on the face so I left it uncovered ..,just very careful when removing from the machine ..

im going to wash the whole assembly down though ..and clean the mirror face before final assembly.. 

Thought you might like to see this ..

I have an Ikharus 10”RC .. once made by Ian King ..I love the scope ... but a few people have mentioned the fact that the focuser is attached to the mirror cell .. and with the weight of the focuser and  camera hanging off the back it’s quite easy to put it out of collimation .  I had a couple of options .. sell the scope and buy another with the decoupled mirror  , or modify mine .. ! 
 

I was especially nervous as the mirror is still in the cell as I didn’t want to disturb ..

all turned out well though .. modified a tilt adjuster I had for the focuser attachment , and I have been plying around to see if the new set up places the leader beam in the middle of the secondary..  and it seems pretty good .. 

so will disassemble and clean the mirror properly before final assembly..

will post some more pics later ..

7 hours ago, ultranova said:

That is up close and personal, I  like it

I had the same problem with my equipment,  mainly the hardware

Takes a couple sessions to get back into it.

Trouble is with the good old UK weather it could be 2 months apart

nice capture 

Paul

Hi Paul ... .  it’s surprising how you forget things .. what made it worse , was all my laptops and small computer in the case outside decided to update   🤬.. as for PI ..I didn’t have it long before the summer break .. and what l had learnt has gone ... so will have to start again ....  

Took this a couple of weeks back .. first time out for absolutely ages .. June .. in fact ..   forgot how everything worked 😉.

this is pretty much full FOV with my RC10 and QSI683 .. 

processed with APP and photoshop ..  I haven’t been playing with PI , so forgot that too 😂.. as the nights are drawing in I will have to reacquaint myself ..  

6 hrs Total integration..  

600 sec subs , RGB  12 of each .. 

Gents .. please don’t pass on the guys phone number , I have just spoken to him and he would rather people email him .. 

I will send email address via Pm if requested ..

cheers Brian 

I have 2 QSI cameras and have them looked after by a Gentleman in Worksop,..  he can service them recharge the argon ,change out sensors etc etc ..he just replaced 2 fans for me using OE parts and checked the camera for less than £60 .. all in .. if you need his details just message me .. 

I was looking for a target opposite the moon last week on those couple of clear nights we had .. this target  in Cygnus seemed to fit the bill . 

Taken with my RC10 and QSI583 , Narrowband only due to the moon phase.

14 x 600 sec Ha 

24 x 600 sec OIII .. 

6.3 hours total integration time .. 

Finding my way around PI tools .. so had another crack at my M51 again 

4 hours ago, Shibby said:

Nicely done - I know just how difficult this is to process - there's a huge difference in brightness between the core and outer regions.

The second version looks very similar to me, on my screen. I'm almost tempted to suggest you've posted the same image twice!?

I removed the first image ..in the end .. 

I was looking at a battery for my set up and I was looking at the 100/120 ah units ..these from what I have read will easily do the job ..though a little heavy 👍

I have the Altair 130 EDT , and it’s great .. I did replace the focuser though .. the original is nice and smooth etc but I am hanging a large camera etc on the end of it and wanted something more ridged.. ..but a really nice scope ..very pleased .. 👍

18 hours ago, Alan White said:

Pheww, delivery made 😅, I was just getting nervous.

Cladding, wood for door framing etc.
Lots of Ballast and Cement to fill in that flipping big hole.

More hard graft to start over the weekend.

 

Hello mate ..  looks like it’s going well .. 👍.. have you decided yet , concrete or Steel pier ? 
 

Had another shot at processing  this .. the first effort was oversaturated.. 

great image .👍. I take it this is a cropped image as your FOV seems much bigger 

25 minutes ago, andrew s said:

Excellent to my untutored eye. What is the thinking behind the two different Ha bandwidths? 

Regards Andrew 

The QSI 583 cameras are  5 position filter wheels .. , one is loaded with Chroma 3nm Ha ,OIII and SII filters , the other is loaded with Astrodon LRGB filters , and I brought a secondhand Astrodon Ha 5nm that I added in to fill  the wheel ..  there’s no  technical reasoning just financial 😉 

Yeah just another M81 🤔 .. very nice one though 👍love the dust ..  

cracking shot ..

6 minutes ago, carastro said:

Wow you have done exceptionally well on this, and as you say it is difficult to process because of the bright core.

Carole 

Thanks Carole , yes the core was a pain as is that lighter diagonal stripe in the bottom LH side .. where that’s from I have no idea. ..

Thought I would have a go at something different ..and reportedly tricky to process ..  NGC6543 ..Cats Eye Nebula ... 

I know I haven’t given the target enough time but thought I would process what I had so far and see where I need to concentrate, or even start again when the skies clear again ..

I shot The following on the RC10 with QSI 583 cameras .

24 x 300 OIII 3nm 

12 x 300 Ha 3nm 

12 x 600 OIII 3nm 

12 x 600 Ha 5 mm 

6 x 600 Red

6 x 600 Green 

6 x600 Blue 

the Ha & OII subs and were not that good 😔, I think due to the high humidity we have had down here in sunny Essex .. but hay ho !

I think better OIII subs would increase the detail . , but I think I will just start again with new subs in due course .. 

spent the whole day processing this , calibrating the subs in both APP and PixInsight .. then Processing in Pix and PS .. 

that very nice Alan 👍 

Shot this at the beginning of this week , with 8 hours total integration time , I was hoping for more , especially Luminance but the clouds rolled in . 

it’s supposed to be clear tonight so I may gather some more data 

12 x 600 sec each RGB  and Lum .. .. 

processed in PixInsight and PS .. 

taken on my RC10 and QSI583 ..  

On 21/04/2020 at 14:27, SyedT said:

Forgot to reply to this! Cheers for that, my issue with further curves etc was that a background colour cast appears, so I kept it on the mild side. I'm hoping to get more RGB when I go back to widefield stuff later on. I used SCNR after stretching.  

Apply a mask to the background , then apply the curves 👍