MickD

It was good to meet up with everyone & thanks to Tony for arranging. Shame about the weather, but we still had a good time.

The very loud helicopter above our motorhome in the middle of the night was a bit of a surprise though. Hopefully whoever they were looking for was OK.

Mick & Jill

Booked, Fri, Sat, Sun. Pitch 6.

Will book pub when they decided to answer their phone.......

Mick & Jill

Phoned Pencelli, on pitch 6

9 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

I'm quite happy to swap with another nearby if it's a problem for you.

Thanks for the offer, but not a problem. I will phone them tomorrow and book another pitch. See you in October

1 hour ago, cajen2 said:

Really? They didn't mention it when I booked...

I booked online & requested pitch 5. Did you book by phone? Maybe they didn't allocate pitch 5 to me.

34 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

Now booked: pitch 5. Come and say hello!

Clive

That's interesting, I thought I had booked pitch 5 yesterday?

Have just booked, Arriving 13th, leaving 16th (have asked for pitch 5)

Mick & Jill

Hi Tony & All,

We still haven't found a motorhome so won't be staying at Pencelli, we plan to come and visit on Saturday (get the good coffee on Tony). 

Will come & have a chat.

Mick & Jill.

Hi Tony, those dates look OK for us, however we still don't have a motorhome or caravan. We will have to see what we can find between now & then.

Looking forward to meeting up.

Mick & Jill

Hi Tony, we are not going to make it this year. Just moved this month, don't have the caravan anymore & haven't got a motor home yet...

Will try and drive over for a visit if we can (only about an hour away).

Mick & Jill

Have booked 31st March to 3rd April. 

See you there.

Mick & Jill

Jill & I are planning on comming along in April, I may even bring a scope this time.....

Old favourite, imaged this a few times....but first time trying a mosaic in Pixinsight.

Details are:-

Two panes, LRGB mosaic. Each pane is:-

Lum = 20 x 200sec Bin1

R, G, B = 8 x 120 sec Bin 2

Imaged in January with my Atik 383L + and a WO FLT98 scope.

The moon was up when I captured one of the Blue channels (first attempt was ruined by cloud) and it made balancing the gradients a bit difficult (the right-hand side is a bit darker than the left).

It was also a bit of a test to see how little colour data I could get away with.

Mick

Small Propeller Nebula

Another bit of Cygnus (this time pointing at the Propeller Nebula).

Same setup as all the others I have posted recently:-

Atik 383L, Samyang 135mm, Narrowband SHO process in Pixinsight.

Probably going to move the CCD to my WO FLT 98 for the next images.  so will post any new pics in "Deepsky Imaging"

BR

Mick

Cygnus Loop.

Ha data was taken a couple of years ago with my Atik 383 and a canon 70 -200 F4 zoom (@ 135mm).

The OIII & SII were taken recently with the same CCD but this time with my Samyang 135mm.

Processed in Pixinsight as SHO (all channels were 5min subs and about 30ish images each).

The OIII & SII were taken during a bright moon, but Pixinsight removed the gradients OK.

Image is cropped a bit as the framing was different for the Ha.

Mick

Another one from me.

NAN & Pelican from a few weeks ago. Samyang 135mm at F2.8 & Atik 383L mono, about 2.5 hours in each narrowband channel.

Processed as SHO in Pixinsight.

Mick

The colour scheme wasn't planned. Processing is my least favourite aspect of astrophotography. So I tend to process quite quickly and stop as soon as I get something I'm happy with.

I used SHO-AIP to mix the channels, did a bit of SCNR to reduce the green and this popped out, liked the colours so kept it....

Mick    

Latest image with the Samyang 135. Crescent & Tulip Nebula with lots of stuff surrounding them.

Taken with my Atik 383L+ mono, approx 2.5 hours in each narrowband channel.

Processed as SHO in pixinsight.

Having lots of fun with this lens.

Mick

To add another comparison, this is 3 hours (in 15 min subs), also with a KAF 8300 (Atik 383) and a Samyang 135 (cropped to just show the nebula). I had to remove the stars before I could see anything.

Not sure If I am going to continue........

Mick

Thanks Tony for arranging another excellent  SWAG star party. It was good meeting up with old friends and new. The Brecon dark skies didn't disappoint  (despite only brining binoculars with me this time). 

This was our first holiday since Covid started & we both really enjoyed it. 

Looking forward to April & October.

Mick & Jill

Just had caravan serviced, all OK (not bad for a 23 year old van). Will now be staying, booked for 7th, 8th, 9th on pitch 4 (so no loud snoring Tony).

Will be our first holiday since the start of the pandemic, really looking forward to it.

Mick & Jill

Not sure if Jill & I will be camping, but even if we don't we will come along for the day & meet up with everyone. 

Mick & Jill.

With all the lockdowns in South Wales I'm not sure if this is still going ahead.

Would have been really good to meet up again but Jill & I have decided to give this one a miss. 

Hopefully things will be better by spring. 

Mick & Jill. 

Nothing at my location for the next month. 

I have at last got around to processing the ISS transit data from April. Bit out of focus (but its difficult when there are no features on the sun to focus on).

Will have another go when one comes around again.

Mick