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eshy76

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eshy76 last won the day on September 7 2019

eshy76 had the most liked content!

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    Sutton, Surrey, UK

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  1. Hey @knobby I've got a HEM27EC, but haven't used it for a couple of months due to weather. Initial impressions were positive but I just wanted to ask whether meridian flips work consistently for you? On mine, the flip happens but the guiding goes nuts afterwards...I must have the wrong PHD2 setting selected or something. I'm sure the meridian flip would behave similarly for EC and non-EC versions which is why I ask. Looks like three clear nights coming up for me, but with a full moon stomping all over the Pleaides/Orion part of the sky, not sure which narrowband targets to shoot!
  2. Hi everyone, This year's Soul was captured using two rigs simultaneously (two strain wave mounts no less, the RST135 and HEM27EC), one using an OSC camera and one using narrowband filters. I then decided to combine the narrowband data with that I captured in previous years. This year's data added about 13 hours to the overall 26 hour integration time...in one-and-a-bit nights! I then decided to try to process the NB in as "natural" a palette as I could muster, with the ratios being: R: 67%*Ha + 33%*SII G: OIII B: OIII Finally I added back the RGB stars from the OSC capture. Phew! Full details here Thank you for looking!
  3. Hello, I have an image that i added 13 hours of data captured in September 2022 to data acquired in previous years. The new data amounted to 50% of the overall integration time. Would that be permissible?
  4. Congrats to Emil and the others on the podium! Very chuffed to have got a mention for my image of a much longed-for target!
  5. What do we have here then? Open box for a few hundred quid off...logical that the weather is pants for the foreseeable! If the weather ever clears up hope to get this up and running soon and will compare to my Rainbow Astro RST-135.
  6. I was lucky enough to go to Mauritius for a couple of weeks this month for a family holiday and took advantage of a clear night! I dashed away from my family after dinner and set up on the Bortle 4 beach at my hotel in Pointe Aux Piments for a couple of hours, gunning for one of my most lusted after targets, the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. I know the challenge refers to star trackers, but I chose to bring my tiny Rainbow Astro RST-135 mount which only weighs 3.3kg, so I'm not sure if that is allowed for this! Imaged on August 16th with an Askar FMA180 and ZWO ASI2600 MC Pro. 84 x 60 second exposures at 0 gain. Here is an image of the setup in situ for full disclosure!
  7. Very nice image! Thanks for sharing! Yes it's always worth trying despite conventional wisdom being against it...I had another night's data on Rho on a full moon night, with the moon very close to Antares...I went for it anyway, partly to dry run the setup (which definitely helped on the beach a week later), but the subs were definitely washed out! In general, for me I notice that the quality of my images degrades sharply below 25 degrees at home in Sutton, Surrey. Hmm...maybe I'll pop my own image into that holiday challenge thread too!
  8. Thank you... it's one of those to target when you are in the Southern Hemisphere, though with a DEC of -24, this is probably very possible from anything around 20° N. The focal length I used here is 180mm, but something like a Samyang 135mm lens would also be great for this, so a light travel setup with a modded DSLR and tracker could definitely work too!
  9. Thank you very much Bryan! It is definitely great for all the planning to result in a nice image!
  10. Thank you! I'm chuffed with the result...I could've maybe got a few more hours integration, but I couldn't keep dashing off from my family after dinner! (Night was from 7pm there and Rho went from Zenith to below the horizon by about 11.30pm)
  11. Hi - thank you! Mauritius is actually mostly Bortle 5 in the built up areas, but around the coast and the forest regions a bit better! But yes the population (including tourists) vs. land equation is the key factor.
  12. Here is the kit on the beach! In hindsight I should have prepared all the cabling ahead of time instead of connecting everything up in situ, though that went smoothly albeit with cable spaghetti...I used a bog standard carbon fibre tripod which was okay...but I can see from the photo I left the central column extended which was not meant to happen, but hey I was in the dark! The sea is about 5 metres away in the darkness. I saw several shooting stars during the evening which was amazing, while the chitter of fruit bats added something unique to the experience!
  13. Hi everyone, It's been a while from me, but the astrophotography flame is still burning brightly within me! A trip to Mauritius this month was an opportunity to catch up with family and friends after several years, and also a chance to put a travel rig together for some darker skies! After flirting with bringing a modified DSLR and Skyguider Pro, polar alignment considerations (with no guarantee of visibility of the Southern pole at the 20° latitude) convinced me I needed a computer and NINA for its TPPA which works regardless of pole visibility. Once I took that decision, there was no reason not to bring my 3.3kg Rainbow Astro RST-135 mount, apart from my own nervousness at carrying such expensive kit with me...once I got over that, the DSLR was replaced with the ASI2600MC Pro, to be paired with the Askar FMA180 lens to target Rho Ophiuchi. Power was the next concern, which I solved by bringing two close to 100Wh (so hand baggage compliant) lithium ion batteries. Everything including guidescope and cam fit inside my hand luggage, weighing about 15kg. Anyway, to cut to the end, I got lucky with the weather one night while staying at a hotel and spent a couple of hours on the beach...imaging on the sand was a new challenge, with my tripod almost certainly not level, but I got guiding consistently below 1" RMS, which was fine for my pixel scale. I only got 84 minutes of data, but I hope that imaging at a Bortle 4 site Vs my usual Bortle 7 skies made up for that. Here is the end product - I love this part of the sky and whereas it doesn't get above the rooftops at home, in Mauritius it passed through the Zenith! I'll also post an image of the setup on site in the next post - thanks for looking! Full details here
  14. Yes I have my eye firmly on the EC version for this reason. I also have and love the RST-135 (non E) for my refractors, but it is not quite good enough to guide my 8" EDGEHD....the 0.5 second guide exposures needed for optimal performance all but rule out an OAG for the EDGE, but the feedback from the RST-135E suggests the encoder-tamed PE allows for 2-3 second guide exposures which brings the OAG back into the equation. If the HEM27EC does similar at a significantly lower price than that mount, as you say, it could be a game changer for longer focal length imaging.
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